I saw the mayor of Shreveport's title

Context
Shreve Memorial Library, where I work, has a Board of Control. Up until today, the Board's webpage hadn't been updated recently, so it still listed the privious mayor, who's white, as an ex oficio member. Now our current mayor, who's black, is on there instead. As per normal protocol, the mayor's "The Honorable" title is placed before his name on the page.

Commentary
Quakers have various testimonies that over the years have led to a general disregard for honorifics. Earlham College has a contemporary explanation of this practice about one-third of the way down this page.

Quakers have no creedal statements, but I generally follow most of my church's traditional teachings. Not this one, though. Lately I've felt compeled to start adding formal shows of respect to my interactions with others, rather than taking them away.

This inspiration came largely from a coworker I had shortly after I arrived in Shreveport, who expressed some dismay that a person had called her by her first name without her permission. In our current cultural context, I don't think she felt her obvious social superiority was not being acknowledged. No, the use of her first name made her feel denigrated because, in contrast to the person addressing her, she was a) female and b) over 50.

I've been using computers for 25 years and have gotten pretty good at least at the application side of things. I teach beginners' classes to senior citizens who have never touched a mouse. You'd better believe I call every one Mr. or Ms. as appropriate. I feel I owe it to them to show respect for everything they have achieved, especially since others have often made them feel stupid about not having this particular set of skills.

I also always call President Bush "President Bush." It is important for me to remind myself that even though I disagree with a person about 80% of the time, he is owed a certain amount of respect for having legally won two presidential elections. If you want to disagree with me about the "legally won" part, we can have a lengthy discussion, including a comparison to the "Compromise of 1876," some other time.

So what about Mayor Glover of Shreveport? He is such a confident guy that it's hard to picture anyone dissing him to his face, and impossible to imagine it bothering him. I also don't generally disagree with his policies. He's still going to get the "Mayor Glover" treatment from me every time, though. Shreveport is majority African-American, but this is the first time a black person has been elected mayor. Furthermore, it was quite a close election with some very unlovely black mayor=unsafe streets rhetoric being tossed around. At this point, I feel like as a white person I owe the entire African-American community an honorific.

What did you see today?

I saw the hedge around my alma mater.

Context
I’m in Houston today, so I visited the Rice University campus, which is right across the street from the Texas Medical Center. Rice has a wholly contiguous campus that is surrounded by a hedge. The hedge is not physically imposing enough to prevent anyone or anything from coming on campus, but it does clearly delineate the borders.

I graduated from Rice twenty years ago, so of course I see changes whenever I go back and visit. For example, sometime after my departure the Texas Medical Center built a really ugly building just beyond the Rice hedge.

Commentary
I was planning to go to church this morning, but instead I was moved to visit Rice. As I was walking around trying to figure out what drew me there, I saw this much-taller-than-everything-around-it, windowless building and was somewhat afraid that it might be on the campus itself. But no, as I got closer I realized that my beloved hedge was standing guard, keeping me from having to think that some of my alumni giving might have contributed to this monstrosity. As I sat on a bench facing away from both the ugly Med Center building and the hedge I started thinking about the protective aspects of communities.

Rice is an interesting place to go to school. It's an academically challenging but close-knit community. For four years Rice gathers people together and tells them that inside the hedges, it’s safe to be smart and obsessive and all-around different from the norm. In spite of the fact that the hedge is a puny little thing, I still felt shielded there.

It’s not just a shield, though. During those four years (or five or six or whatever) Rice tries to prepare you to go out in the world and accomplish something, not only by making you smarter, but by giving you the emotional tools to answer some of the crap the world throws at you. Four years of being told it’s great to be a nerd makes you likely to continue to believe it even twenty, thirty and forty years later.

I am blessed that I continue to have two communities that work the same way for me even today. My marriage is one. People get and stay married for any of number of reasons, but both my husband and I have come to treasure the refuge aspect of our relationship. We feel like we really can go out and do battle with all the problems of this world because we know someone will love us at the end of the day. Or sometimes in the middle, when we really want to scream! At its best, our marriage is not a hiding place, but a place where we can both rest and be reassured that we are capable of facing the next challenge to come.

My Quaker meeting is another such community. We're a pretty heterogeneous group in terms of religious beliefs and values, but we hold sacred the idea that everyone should be safe at the meeting. Not unchallenged, not coddled, but safe. It's a place where a person may hear a hundred times, "that's different from my experience," but will never hear, "you're wrong to think that way." So we get to examine the Spirit of God within us in an atmosphere that celebrates that Spirit and inspires us to go share it with the rest of the world.

I think everyone would benefit from belonging to these types of communities and I'd like to give you some advice about finding and/or building your own. Unfortunately, I can't. As far as I can tell, I came to both of these communities by the grace of God. So instead I'll pray that God provides you with the gift of a supportive community as well. I'll also invite you to come to our Quaker meeting at 10:00 a.m. Saturday mornings at Charlie Cook's Art Studio, 3500 Texas Blvd., Texarkana, TX. My marriage is not accepting any new members at this time.

What did you see today?

I heard a "just" prayer

Context
A couple of other Friends and I volunteered today at the Randy Sams Shelter for the Homeless in Texarkana, Texas. While we were there, another woman who was volunteering from the Partnership Church of Texarkana asked us to gather and pray with someone. That woman said a prayer out loud that included the word "just" a lot, e.g "I just want to thank you, Father," "I just pray you'll heal our friend," etc.

Commentary
I don't know where the "just" style of prayer comes from, but I first started hearing it about twenty years ago. I wonder if it came from the 1970's "Jesus freaks." The cadence of it sort of sounds like an invitation to mellow out and rap with God. Prayer as casual conversation instead of a big deal.

I find "just" prayers a little jarring. I don't think God has any trouble listening to them, but the very casual sound that may make them attractive to some repels me. I think prayer is a big deal. When someone uses the word "just" a lot, it sounds like they haven't really considered what they're saying to God, they're "just" throwing stuff out there. God loves us and listens to us always, but shouldn't we love Him enough to put a little thought into what we're going to say?

In fact, given that God does love us, another problem emerges. When I say "I just" in everyday conversation, it's usually a fear response. I want to say something, but I think I'm going to get in trouble for it, like "don't get mad at me, but I just don't think four-inch heels are appropriate for horseback riding." It's a phrase with a built-in cringe.

If this is the case, "I just" is a wildly innapropriate way to talk to God. Jesus uses a metaphor of God as Father, but hopefully we all understand that God is better than any earthly father in that He always wants to hear what we have to say When I pray I say, "please," or "if it's Your will" to God in order to be respectful, but I don't grovel. I'm a child of God; I get to ask for stuff with confidence that He will always listen and provide what I need.

What did you see today?

I saw a list of best-reviewed sports movies

Context
Rotten Tomatoes is a website that compiles movie reviews and gives each film a score base on the number of negative and positive reviews. Lately they have taken to compiling Best and Worst lists including the recently-published Top Sports Movies.

Commentary
This Rotten Tomates feature appealed to me immediately because I like both sports and movies. However, I was puzzled by the fact that even though these were the best-reviewed sports movies, the critics took great pains to point out on several of them that the plot was not very original. I find this a bizarre standard to use for any kind of storytelling. I believe movies are made and books are written to illustrate universal human truths and frankly, there's a limited number of those to go around. I think it's particularly unfair to judge sports movies this way because most sports movies have the exact same plot: underdog overcomes enormous odds and triumphs. It's why we go see a sports movie, for crying out loud!

I think the critics are looking for originality in the wrong place: what makes a great sports movie is using that same timeworn plot and still creating an unexpected reaction in the viewer. For example, I love the movie Remember the Titans. One of the reasons is because I find the Denzel Washington character is admirable, but not particularly likable. I'm not used to thinking the hero of a piece is kind of a jerk, and this is a pretty brave choice in a film that contains exactly one bankable star. Or take Field of Dreams. Every time I sit down to watch that movie, it looks like it's about baseball, and yet I end up thinking about something besides baseball when it's over. Now any movie that gets my brain moving gets a plus in my book, but Field of Dreams usually makes me consider something different every single time!

My favorite sports movie, beating out Remember the Titans by just a hair, is Major League. OK, silly slapstick comedy, same old sports movie plot, where's the surprise reaction there? Just this: every time I see the formerly-isolated "Wild Thing" come on the field to the adulation of thousands, I cry. Buckets. You want to know what's worse? I've seen this movie five or six times and I still cry every single time. I know what's coming, I can probably quote a great deal of the surrounding dialogue to you, and I still react. That's movie magic!

So the moral of the story is, it's not what you show your moviegoing audience that matters (sorry ILM!), it's how you help them see it differently. Hmm, is there a recurring blog theme in there somewhere?

What did you see today?

I saw Jewish people touching the Torah

Context
My husband, Mark, belongs to the Shreveport-Bossier Go club. Ron, another member of the club, became Bar Mitzvah today (I think that's the correct usage, but my Hebrew comprehension is nothing to write home about). As part of the service, there was a parade with the Sefer Torah. Most of the people in the congregation touched the Torah, either with their hand or their prayer book, but Mark and I did not.

Commentary
Please don't think I'm being disrespectful when I say there was a parade with the Sefer Torah. In the order of service, it said, "a parade may follow," and at that point, Ron and his mom, who is the spiritual leader of the B'nai Zion congregation (no pressure there, I'm sure), walked around the sanctuary with the sacred scroll.

So why didn't Mark and I touch it? Short answer, we're not Jewish. The long answer (and it wouldn't really be a blog entry without that, would it?) has to do with my beliefs about why Jewish people do touch the Sefer Torah with such reverence, in most cases forsaking bare skin and using their prayer book instead.

First of all, let's take some ideas off the table. I don't think touching the Torah is an empty ritual. It is my hope that in a society where we strive for freedom of religion that no one would engage in meaningless worship activities. Also, given the rarity of Jewish people in the South, probably not a lot of pressure to perform such a gesture just for show. I also don't think it's a superstitious thing, like "touch the Sefer Torah, be blessed for the rest of the day," or smething like that.

No, what I think I saw today was people seeking physical contact with their heritage. My religious education has always taught me that the Jewish people were set apart from everyone else in this world by God Himself for one purpose: to inherit His mitzvoh (commandments). Touching the Torah is how one acknowledges, "this is who I am and why I was created."

So the end of my long answer is, "it's not who I am and why I was created." Being a Gentile and a Christian, mine is a different path. But to be in the same room with so many people making this simple but powerful statement about their identity and heritage? Well, I didn't touch, but I did cry.

What did you see today?

I saw a word in a book

Context
Currently, I'm reading The Art of Peace: Nobel Peace Laureates Discuss Human Rights, Conflict and Resolution. In it, Laureate Jody Williams talks about future plans for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which include enforcement of the existing treaty. "Impunity," she says, "is a horrific problem, obviously, and we do not want to contribute to impunity."

Commentary
Impunity is a horrific problem. If you have laws in place, but people think it doesn't matter if they obey them or not, then you might as well not have the laws at all. Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, presents the case of the murder rate in New York dropping after Mayor Giuliani stepped up enforcement of misdemeanors like vandalism and subway turnstile-hopping. Apparently, when people no longer thought they could commit even small transgressions with impunity, the incidence of the most heinous of crimes went down as well.

In other words, society benefits when people believe what they do matters. This works for good as well as evil. In my last post I said that it's important to do something, but if you don't think anyone will care about what you do, why bother? In fact, this is often the excuse people use for not trying to right the wrongs of this world: "I'm just one person. Nothing I can do will have any impact." But are you really just one person? Do you not have any friends, neighbors or family members that are affected by your actions? Advertising gurus will tell you that word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing tool in the world. Could the words from your mouth be the last straw that finally ends the practice of using child soldiers? You never know . . .

So here's a two-pronged strategy for you: first, behave as if what you do matters. It does to God, if no one else (see Matthew 6:1-18 for the positive and Numbers 32;1-24 for the negative). Now, try treating other people as if what they do matters as well. That'll give impunity a kick in the pants!

What did you see today?

I saw a quote on the value of watching

Context
I was reading some of the entries in the "Ask ET" forum today. You can find the index for the forum here. "ET" in this context stands for Edward Tufte, a professor emeritus at Yale University whose current passion is analytical design. I find a great deal of Tufte's work fascinating, if only because of his elegant defense of the idea that how you present information is as important as the information itself. However, today I was particularly struck by the wisdom of this entry in the forum, where the author decided to open up a broader philosophical discussion on "Grand Truths about Human Behavior." Here's one quote that Tufte believes fits the "Grand Truths" bill: "Upon expecting fair play in high places: You'll get it if enough folk are watching." ( J. P. Donleavy's variant of Wendell Phillips' "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.")

Commentary
Yippee! Another chance to justify the existence of this blog, this time by quoting people who think just watching what other people do is important.

The political theory expressed above looks remarkably cynical: people in power don't base their decisions on ethical principles; they do as much evil as they think they can get away with. I'm not sure that's actually what's being said, though. I believe that most of the time, people think they're doing the right thing. This belief requires a really broad definition of "right" that encompasses convenience, instant gratification and no small amount of self-centeredness, but what I'm saying is that we very rarely pull out our Snidely Whiplash capes and decide to do wrong. So what Donleavy is saying is that a few extra eyes will tilt a governing authority away from a selfish view of what's right toward a more socially beneficial one. I think he may be right in some cases, but I think we have to recognize that oftentimes people are sufficiently set on a bad path that just seeing them doing wrong will not be enough. We have to both care and act.

I spend most of my work day in front of a computer. In this Information Age, that means I learn about a lot of situations that could be defined as "wrong," if only grammatically. In the vast majority of circumstances, I don't care because life's too short to worry about every little thing. I've seen what someone is doing, but I deem his/her action unimportant, so my seeing has little impact on either me or her/him.

Some items bubble up to the level of concern. They make me mad or sad or depressed, but I don't do anything about it for any number of reasons (sometimes the emotions themselves paralyze me). Well, now the person's choice has an effect on me, but if I don't at least take the step of letting him/her know my opinion, I don't think it matters much to that person.

So in order to inspire fair play in high places, or to effect any positive change for that matter, we have to see and care and act. Luckily, "acting" can take many forms. Just in the non-violent realm there's voting, protesting, debating, educating and publicizing (this last one adheres to the "more eyes watching are more likely to provoke good behavior theory."). Or you could try writing in a blog that hardly anyone reads. Hey, it's a start!

What did you see today?

I saw an article about financing for college

Context
The Shreveport Times runs "The Color of Money" by Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary. Today's column was about financing for college and contained excerpts from a conversation with Joseph Hurley, author of The Best Way to Save for College: A Complete Guide to 529 Plans and publisher of the savingforcollege.com website.

This was one of the questions Singletary asked: "When applying or need-based financial aid, I know that institutions look at both parental and child resources. Do you know whether a 529 savings account would count against a family? It seems like a disincentive. The families who don't save will ultimately get more (free) need-based aid as they have no savings and are needier."

I read this column in today's paper edition of The Times, but I couldn't find it on the website. I found it at washingtonpost.com, but it requires registration, and since I refuse to do that, I certainly won't recommend it to you.

Commentary
I didn't read the response to Singletary's question, because I was too floored by the question itself. Also, I finished college long ago and have no children. Anyway, here's how I read the question: "should people who can afford to save for college neglect to do so in order to be in a better position to compete with people who are unable to save for college for the limited resource that is government aid?" Shorter version: "what exactly do people need to do to ensure that they 'get theirs' from the government?"

I don't want to single (hee!) Singletary out for my incredulity here. Lots of financial journalists write about similar issues: how can I keep Medicare from taking my home when I go into a nursing home; how do I provide my grandchildren with an inheritance that won't count against their SSDI (full disclosure: members of my family have taken advantage of that one); etc. It has become commonplace for us to think of programs that were originally developed as safety nets as being entitlements. We paid into these funds with our taxes, the reasoning goes, we should be able to take what we want from them. Or sometimes just, "they exist, so we should be able to take what we want from them."

Peter G. Peterson has a lot of interesting things to say about how we came to this state of affairs in his book Running on Empty. In it, he lays blame pretty equally on both liberals and conservatives, but Democrats are singled out for believing that social programs that both exist on a need-based basis are not politically viable because nobody will support government aid they don't personally benefit from. From my perspective, they're wrong. I believe self-sufficiency is its own reward. I remember when I first started working after graduating from college, I used to have so much fun paying my bills. "Woo-hoo! I earned this money, now I can pay for my own air conditioning!" I lived in Houston; air conditioning was far and away my biggest expense. I won't say that I'm still that enthusiastic; twenty years of paying your own way calms one down a bit.

The attitude Singletary is inquiring about (I won't claim she has it herself) brings to mind my favorite parable: the one about the workers being hired to work the field throughout the day (Matthew 20:1-15). When I teach kids about this parable I tell them there's something else going on besides God rewarding whom He chooses. The people who start working in the field early, i.e. the people who don't wait until they're about to die to serve God, get an extra reward: they get to serve God longer! People who can afford to save for college tuition for their children get a reward that's far better than free money: they get to put their children through college! What could be a better fulfillment of the American dream than that?

Please understand, generally-available government services are another story. I think everybody should use their public libraries, schools and roads. And if we had a tax system that supported universal higher education, public nursing homes, and single-payer health care, I would expect everyone to take advantage of those as well, because they would be designed for everyone's use. But need-based financial aid for college should be just that: need-based. If you don't need it, you shouldn't be thinking about how you can take advantage of it anyway.

What did you see today?

I heard someone talk about competition

Context
I teach high school Sunday School at my husband's church. Frequently I'll have no students, so I'll spend the time talking with other members of the church. Today, as we were discussing the war in Iraq, one of them said something like this: "I don't really know the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites, but I know the main problem is they don't want to be equal. They each want us to take their side."

Commentary
As is true of most of the people at First Lutheran, the man I was talking to is both older and more conservative than me. However, in this particular case I agreed with him. I told him, "I think you're right, but that's true of everybody. Everybody wants to be ahead of everyone else."

I think that competitiveness is both normal and healthy. I think that makes me unusual among pacifists, because there's a tendency to think that competition leads to strife, and that's what we're trying to avoid. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I believe there are ways to be competitive without being violent toward your fellow human being. I'm going to use some examples from the National Football League to illustrate my point, because that's the competition I'm paying the most attention to as we head into the conference championships.

One problem with competitiveness that seems to prey especially on the minds of parents of small children is the possibility that being defeated in a contest will damage one's self-esteeem. I think this happens when we expand our analysis of a competition's outcome beyond reasonable limits.

For example, this is a true statement: "The New England Patriots defeated the San Diego Chargers in a divisional playoff game last week."

This one might be true as well: "Over a span of 60 minutes last week, the New England Patriots were a better football team than the San Diego Chargers."

However, none of these are true:

1) "The New England Patriots are morally superior to the San Diego Chargers."
2) "Each individual member of the New England Patriots is more manly than each individual member of the San Diego Chargers."

or even
3) "The New England Patriots will always beat the San Diego Chargers every time they play."

Each win or loss in a competitive event is related to that event only and should not be treated as giving insight into other aspect of life. No little girl should ever be led to think that if a ball gets past her into a soccer net that it means she'll never have any success at anything. For that matter no 26-year-old quarterback should feel that way either.

OK, that's how we keep competition from being negative, how do we make it positive? Well, the narrow focus can also be beneficial in our search for identity, something psychologists tell us starts in adolescence, but I think stays with us as long as we grow as people. In fact, this is a context where, although winning is great, losing may provide more valuable lessons.

For example, at Indiana University, Antwaan Randle El was a quarterback. However, in the NFL he lost that competition to guys who were, quite frankly, better quarterbacks. Now he's not only one of the best receivers in the NFL, but occasionally scares defenses to death with the prospect that he'll drop back and throw the ball instead of catching it. So let's review:

True statement: Antwaan Randle El is not as good at the quarterback positions as some other guys are.

False statements: "Antwaan Randle El can't play professional football." "Antwaan Randle El can't scare the defense." Or even, "Antwaan Randle El will never throw a pass in the NFL," because he's already thrown several.

Antwaan Randle El's identity, at least at his day job, is defined differently from what he might have expected. But it's still a great identity, and it's all his because very few people pose the same multiple threat he does. Competition can do that for you, whittle down the "what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you can learn more about, what you'd just as soon not bother with" stuff until you're the perfect little sculpture God meant you to be.

So go out there and compete! Celebrate your wins, learn from your losses, and remember that the bigger picture is both big and constantly changing.

What did you see today?

I heard someone talk about identity theft

Context
I was at a shoe store today. The cashier talked for a long time both to the customers before me and to me when my turn came about identity theft schemes she had heard about or experienced and ways to protect oneself against them. The couple ahead of me seemed interested in the topic, but I wasn't. I also wasn't all that enthralled with the education about the dangers of Irish Travelers I received from my in-laws last week.

Commentary
If I'm competely honest, I'll have to say my reaction to these conversations went beyond disinterest to irritation. Taking a first pass at the reason why, I would say that they seemed to focus a lot on building up fear, which I know is the enemy of love.

Digging a little deeper, I feel like these types of conversations reflect an inappropriate attitude toward crime. The reasoning seems to go like this, "people are going to do wrong, so the only thing you can do is develop progressively more complex ways to thwart them." I guess I can see the merits of prevention as opposed to recovery, but I don't understand why the onus is on me. Why do I have to change my behavior because of crime? Shouldn't the emphasis be on changing criminal behavior?

Worse yet, I feel this leads to a bizarre type of "blaming the victim" behavior. There's a man I work with who was robbed by a stranger he had given a ride to. When he and others tell the story, my co-worker's actions are often presented as stupid. No, my co-worker was kind. Thinking that you can repay a kindness with evil and God won't notice is stupid.

Don't get me wrong. I lock both my house and my car and feel more secure now that I live with a big dog. But I also know this: every moment we spend protecting ourselves from bad things another person might do is lost for any other purpose. Are we allowing our fear of identity theft steal time from something much more valuable?

What did you see today?

I saw someone staring into space

Context
I love to walk, both in order to get somewhere and just to wander around. Because I live in a small city in the South, I am accustomed to verbally greeting strangers that I meet in the street. Today I passed two African-American people at once and considered saying, "hey," but one of them was looking down and one was staring into space, so I just smiled and walked on.

Commentary
I didn't greet the two people because they seemed to be preoccupied, and I know I hate being interrupted when I'm doing something, even if the "something" is just engaging in deep thought. In other words, I'm obeying the Golden Rule as stated in Matthew 7:12, "do to others as you would have them do to you." And yet, I find myself disappointed in my actions.

First off, I'm struck by the fact that people have different values and personalities, so what I would have someone do might not be what another person wants. What if the person I passed was staring into space because she was too shy or scared to catch the eye of a stranger? I have boldness to spare, so if she wanted I could have picked up the slack by saying hello.

What worries me more is that sometimes what I would have people do is pathological. For example, to not acknowledge the existence of a fellow human being because I'm deep in thought about what to wear tomorrow indicates misplaced priorities. If someone indulges me in this, that person is enabling my sin, right?

I think there's a more applicable phrasing of the Golden Rule in Matthew, this one in chapter 22, verse 39: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." This seems to be a more global statement. "Do unto others" has the feel of "examine the specific situation, do what you would want done to you, move on." "Love your neighbor" acknowledges what every parent (including our Heavenly Father) knows: sometimes what a person would have you do in a specfic situation can be short-sighted and harmful.

I think love sometimes has to look beyond the immediate situation and try to see what would truly be best for everyone involved. When two strangers give each other a friendly greeting, especially when they belong to different races, that can build community. I'm not saying that's necessarily the most important thing in the world, but I'm saying it's worth taking a little extra effort, a little extra love to explore. Heck, maybe I could have even started a conversation and found out what the lady I met was thinking so deeply about.

What did you see today?

I saw an article about someone's anger

Context
I came upon this column at the Fox News website today. I believe I’ve heard of Mike Straka, but I hadn’t seen this Grrr! column before, where it appears he regularly writes about things that annoy him. In this case, people who urinate in inappropriate places.

Commentary
Public urination doesn’t anger me; it saddens me. I feel sorry for people who are that poorly socialized. I find this happens frequently; situations that really piss (hee!) some people off just look pitiable to me.

I was kind of hoping my response could be considered the morally superior one. Anger can be quite sinful after all, especially if it’s the self-righteous kind of anger that says, “I would never pee in a public place; why can’t everybody be more like me?” On the other hand, zeal for true righteousness gets its own beatitude, so there’s a blessing available for the person who fights against the lack of respect for rules and property and the rights of other people.

What about my feelings of sadness, then? Well, that’s compassion, so it’s a great moral choice, right? Maybe, but if I’m honest with myself, I know that sometimes I’m being not so much compassionate as resigned, believing that nothing can be done to remedy a bad situation and that’s a shame. Or worse, I jump right to, “I don’t need to try to do anything to fix the problem I see; I’m busy being sad about it.” Depression can have just as many self-indulgent elements as anger.

So self-centeredness becomes the problem with both emotions, and in fact, all emotions. Any time joy, sorrow, anger, sexual desire, or whatever is focused on the self, it becomes a vicious, ultimately pointless thing. When an emotion proceeds from one’s love for God, it’s transformed into a powerful weapon for good. It's not so much what you feel as who you feel for.

What did you see today?

I saw a description of Bin Laden's fatwa

Context
I’m reading the 9/11 Commission Report. There's a link here, but I'm reading the hard copy Official Government Edition. Chapter 2 starts with a description of the “fatwa” (more about those quotation marks later) issued by Osama Bin Laden and four other men in 1998. In essence it said, “it is the duty of every Muslim to kill every American they can whenever they can.”

Commentary
First, the quotation marks. The 9/11 Commission Report states: “A fatwa is normally an interpretation of Islamic law by a respected Islamic authority.” So the Islamic equivalent of a Talmudic writing or a papal bull, I guess. Even his most ardent supporters would probably put Bin Laden in more of the “soldier” than “scholar” category, so the quotation marks represent my skepticism that he has much authority to offer interpretations of Islamic law. In fact, I imagine that the average Muslim, if she/he heard about this obligation to kill Americans before 9/11, probably said to her/himself, “yeah, ok, whatever you say, oh crazy person.”

There are people who fault Muslims for this, saying they need to be quicker to distance themselves from extremists. Why? I don’t feel a strong obligation to distance myself from the Phelps family. I just assume people understand the difference between being a traditional Christian and being, well, a member of the Phelps family.

I worry a little, though. Perhaps those of us with moderate viewpoints (now there’s a word I never thought I’d use to describe myself!) spend a little too much time gaping in astonishment at the Bin Ladens and Fred Phelps’ of this world, and not enough time saying, “there really is another viewpoint.” People who never tire of speaking out are a perfect match for the news media, who need a constant flow of stuff to report. So if one measures by sheer volume of coverage, inflammatory opinions might end up looking like the voice of the mainstream.

So for the record, God doesn’t hate anybody, Osama Bin Laden has no authority to interpret Islamic law, and my husband is empowered to make medical decisions for me if I’m unable to do so. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

What did you see today?

I saw some impressive church buildings

Context
I live in a lower-middle-class neighborhood that is right next to an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Today while I was waiting for the bus, I noticed people doing work on a very nice, very large Christian (Disciples of Christ) church building. I then looked at the spire of a very nice, very large Episcopalian church building that is less than two blocks away.

Commentary
I think the most impressive thing about the two church buildings I was looking at today was not their beauty or their size, but the sense of permanence about them. I drive through the poorer parts of Shreveport on a regular basis, and church buildings in these areas tend to be numerous, tiny, and impermanent looking. In reality, they often are “here today, gone tomorrow” kinds of operations.

It’s possible this means people in these less prosperous neighborhoods do not commit to their church, but just skip around looking for the most palatable message. Jesus illustrates this kind of behavior when He talks about the seeds that fall on rocky ground and have no root. The big impressive churches close to my home look like they have some roots, some endurance.

But in the very next verse in Matthew, Jesus talks about seeds sown among thorns as representing those that get choked by the cares of this world. Sometimes when you’re in a nice, permanent church building, other things get in the way of your passion for the Gospel, like making sure your building stays nice and your status quo stays permanent. Perhaps people in the poorer areas are smart enough to tear down and start over at the first sign of these thorns that will choke off their faith.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into the differences in buildings. They’re just edifices, after all. But I wonder if the inhabitants of each type might have something to teach each other.

What did you see today?

I saw an e-mail about death

Context
I belong to an e-mail list called Fiction-L, which covers reader’s advisory issues. A discussion of “books so good you read them over and over again” led to an exchange between a colleague and me regarding Charlotte’s Web. Some snippets follow:

Colleague - People who don't cry at the end of Charlotte's Web worry me. They are the same people who don't cry when Bambi's mother dies.

Me - Them's fighting words, [name omitted]! Charlotte dies in the natural course of nature, which is a little sad, but in more of a "sighing" than "crying" way. Bambi's mother is brutally murdered by stupid human beings! I not only cry; I tend to leave the room so I can pound my fists on something!

Colleague - They're both tragedies--since when is the loss of a friend to natural death any less painful than one to murder? In either case they are gone, and they aren't coming back. Death is no less final for being natural.


Commentary
I was surprised that my reaction to death was so different from my colleague’s, so I’m trying to figure out where the difference comes from. Is it because I don’t believe death is “final” for anyone? Yes, I’m not only a Christian, with the Pauline view of our demise, but a person who thinks that All Dogs go to Heaven. It scarcely seems worth calling it “heaven” if there won’t be critters there.

That can’t be the only reason for the way I feel though, because then I would have the mirror image of my colleague’s opinion: murder is an equal cause for celebration as succumbing to natural causes.

So why are the circumstances surrounding death important? I think it’s because I also hold the “other” Christian viewpoint on mortality: that it infects all of creation because of human sin. We were made the stewards of Earth, so everything on it suffers the same fate we do. So let’s recap: it’s our fault that animals die in the first place, and in Bambi’s mother’s case, we hasten the process along by setting fire to her habitat.

I think the last piece of the puzzle is this: I’m much more likely to cry about things that make me angry than those that make me sad.

What did you see today?

I saw an article about Nancy Grace

Context
The Shreveport Times had an article on Nancy Grace in the Living section this morning. I had never heard of this woman before, possibly because the only television news I watch is the Daily Show and that not regularly. The gist of the article is that the suicide of her prime suspect has not lessened Ms. Grace’s zeal for pursuing the case of a missing child.

Commentary
The article in question does not appear on the Times website, so if you want to read it for yourself, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

I had a number of initial reactions to this article. The one that stuck with me was this: why is a prosecutor working for CNN instead of the courts? I think the answer emerges in Ms. Grace’s statement quoted in the fourth paragraph: “I remain dedicated to the ongoing fight for crime victims everywhere.” It’s possible that she got frustrated when she found out that in the United States, prosecutors are not supposed to be advocates for crime victims. That’s because in this country, we treat crime as an offense against society, not an individual person.

Think about it. A criminal trial is titled The State of Whatever vs. Whomever. It is often the case that district attorneys disregard the opinion of the crime victim when deciding whether or not to prosecute a case. Victims have no intrinsic right to be heard in a criminal trial, but if either side thinks their testimony will be useful, they can be compelled to appear against their will.

The paragraph above may lead you to think I’m opposed to the American judicial system. Quite the contrary, I’m its biggest fan, because I subscribe to the premise above: crime is an offense against society. Obviously rape damages a woman or man, but it also damages the threads that hold us together.

Nancy Grace and I are probably in complete agreement on the previous point, but the American judicial system says that persecuting people without due process also damages society. That’s why we have an adversarial criminal justice system. The prosecutor’s job is to speak for the “we have to punish criminals” societal interest and the defense attorney presents the interest in considering exonerating evidence and mitigating circumstances. Both of them are, therefore, “officers of the court.” Society, as represented by a jury, ideally decides which interest is more compelling in this particular case.

Nancy Grace circumvents this system. She’s an advocate for victims, so her job is to slam the people she considers to be perpetrators. OK, it’s only television, not an actual judicial proceeding, but am I the only one who thinks that suicide indicates there might be more than one victim here? Does our society have any interest we might possibly want to consider before unleashing a Nancy Grace on the world and calling it “entertainment?”

What did you see today?

I saw a mistake I had made

Context
I was going to rant today about a page on the American Library Association website. When I went to pull a quote from the page, I realized that I had read it wrong and it was not rantworthy.

Commentary
Nope, I’m not going to tell you what the page was or what mistake I made, because it’s embarrassing. What I am going to say is that this blog has taught me something about my reactions. I’ll be going along, putting together a self-righteous crusade against something I’ve seen or heard, only to realize that what I thought I saw wasn’t really there.

Publishing my thoughts, whether anyone reads them or not, forces me to examine their underpinnings and take more careful steps instead of jumping to conclusions. I wonder what would happen if I treated all of my responses to stimuli as if they might be on public display?

What did you really see today?

I saw a flyer I was not interested in

Context
Towards the end of my lunch hour today, a man approached me and tried to hand me a flyer. I asked what it was, and he said it would help me figure out if I was going to heaven after I die. I said, "interesting," and walked on without taking the flyer.

Commentary
One of my favorite characters from the Sylvia comic strip, is The Woman who Does Everything More Beautifully than You. I think she's supposed to be a send-up of Martha Stewart, but she actually reminds me a lot of myself. Those of you who have seen my home or my artwork are excused to go explode with laughter.

Now then, what I mean is that when I set out to do things, I'm very detail oriented. I used to work at the Oakland SPCA, which has now been incorporated into the East Bay SPCA. Cleaning kennels used to take me hours longer than everyone else, because I did every step exactly the way I was told, covered every surface with disinfectant, dried thoroughly, and never, ever took shortcuts. I really believe that there’s no point in doing something if you’re not going to do it right. I don’t think I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder, because I don’t feel compelled to do things this way; I just like it.

It can lead to problems, though. Have you heard of the “tyranny of the urgent?” I’m more dominated by the “tyranny of the plan,” as in, I am taking these steps now; don’t try to interrupt me with something else. Which brings me to the gentleman with the flyer. I was on my lunch hour. I had no urgent duties keeping me from engaging with him and building a relationship. But here’s what went through my head: “I’ve bought this sympathy card; I need to write a message in it and look up my co-workers address so I can mail it to her; talking with this guy would be a waste of my very well-planned-out time.” Which was silly. I missed a one-time-opportunity to show love to my brother in Christ in order to accomplish a task I could have done at any number of other times.

What did you see today?

I heard a Jackson Browne song

Context
I heard the Jackson Browne song “Doctor, My Eyes” on the radio today. These are the lyrics:

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of tears
Without crying.
Now I want to understand.
‘Cause I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good
Without hiding.
You must help me if you can!

Doctor, my eyes!
Tell me what is wrong.
Was I unwise
To leave them open for so long?

‘Cause I have wandered through this world.
As each moment has unfurled
I’ve been waiting
To awaken from these dreams.
People go just where they will.
I never noticed them until
I got this feeling
That it’s later than it seems.

Doctor, my eyes!
Tell me what you see.
I hear their cries.
Just say if it’s too late for me.

Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky.
Is this the price
For having learned how not to cry?

Copyright Jackson Browne, 1971. Used by permission.

If you've never heard the song, you can find an mp3 on this webpage.

Commentary
I like Jackson Browne in general, but this is by far my favorite of his songs. At the beginning this guy narrates his attempt to be an unbiased observer of everything and, in the first chorus, expresses his concern that he’s injured himself by seeing too much. Later, the listener realizes that the protagonist may be looking at everything, but not really seeing a great deal of it (how is possible to be this great observer, but “never notice” the people?). And finally, one gets the impression that the injury was not caused by being an observer, but by trying to stay “unbiased” while actual hurt is going on in the world.

This is not only another one of these “I heard” instead of “I saw” entries, but the first one in over a month! I don’t think about this blog every day, but when it has come to mind lately, I’ve thought, “I haven’t really seen anything.” I could be tempted to wonder if I’m suffering from the same eye condition Jackson Browne describes. Have I been trying so hard to stay unbiased that I’m no longer able to see anything? Or worse, has God decided that there’s no sense in showing me anything if I won’t do anything about it?

The temptation is there, but in the end I know a couple of things:

1) Every day is a gift and an opportunity to serve the Lord. Maybe this is a time of more resting than seeing.

2) God is stubborn. If He wants me to see stuff, He’s going to keep showing it to me until I respond correctly. To paraphrase “Alice’s Restaurant,” another favorite song, “He’s not proud. Or tired.”

What did you see today?

I saw the consequences of an oft-repeated mistake

Context
I have a variety of job duties at Shreve Memorial Library, which is not unusual for my profession. One of these is administrating our integrated library system. Another is training staff members on how to use it. Today I was informed that someone made a mistake on the system last Wednesday. The person who notified me stated in her e-mail that “everyone claims innocence,” but further pressing revealed that it was probably a third party who has made this error many times before. It’s possible that the only reason I was told about it was because the mistake in question requires my intervention before anyone at that particular branch can perform the same task. The fix took about 30 seconds, but because I’ve been on vacation, what should be a daily task at that branch has been left undone for five days. It took considerably longer than 30 seconds to compose an e-mail expressing my ire at this ongoing situation to the mistake-maker’s supervisor (a fourth party!).

Commentary
One of the ladies who attends my Quaker meeting thinks Jesus can’t have been perfect because He got mad at people. I disagree. I definitely think there’s such thing as righteous anger and that mine usually fits the criteria ;-).

Anyway, I hope my e-mail to the supervisor expressed the reason for my anger adequately. It’s a little irritating that the same mistake keeps being made over and over again, but what really burns my butt is not being told about it by the responsible party. Politically, I didn’t feel like I could confront the mistake-maker directly, so I was left to speculate on the reasons why she didn’t tell me about the problem herself. I came up with three:

1) She doesn’t think it’s a big enough problem to bother mentioning. As you can tell by this entry, she’s wrong. It’s a sufficient inconvenience to enough people to require immediate action.

2) She figures I’ll find out eventually from someone. Why should she lay herself on the line? I did find out about this eventually from someone, so she was right about that. On the other hand, she’s still smack in the middle of the situation, not because I want to blame someone, but because of necessity any solution to the problem will involve her.

3) She feels like she’s made this mistake so many times that we’ve used up every possible preventative. She’s wrong about that as well. I’m a professional trainer; I’ve always got another educational trick up my sleeve.

So this whole episode got me thinking about confession. Essentially, what I’m wanting from my coworker is what God wants from us: He wants us to admit that we’ve done wrong. Christians (well, everybody actually, but I know the Christian experience better than any other) have many reasons for not wanting to confess our sins to God. Or at least, three:

1) We don’t think the sin is big enough that we need to confess it. What’s a little lust in your heart as compared to bombing innocent children? The problem is, the sinner almost never has any idea of the magnitude of her sin or the effect it’s going to have on other people. We are all too inclined to let ourselves slide for actions we would find unacceptable in other people. Better to let an outside judge take a look at that error for us, I think.

2) God knows that we sin; it seems pointless to discuss it with Him. People use a similar reason for not offering prayers of petition: God knows what I need. Of course He does! In my experience, prayer of all types is not for the purpose of getting God’s attention. It’s to focus ours. In the case of confession, any twelve-step program will tell you that the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.

3) We feel like it’s hopeless. We’ve been down the same path so many times before and nothing ever changes. Really? Nothing? In my experience, it’s never actually the same situation twice. Maybe this time I realize a split-second earlier that I’m doing wrong. Maybe this person calls me on it instead of suffering in silence like the last 29 have done. I’m not saying the changes are always pleasant or even appear positive. I am saying that if Lynn the trainer always has a trick up her sleeve, imagine what God must have in that big old white robe or whatever He wears?

What did you see today?