The Truth Project: The Beginning of Something

I never got around to finishing my Master's degree. I think some of it had to do with my living with depression and anxiety. What really kept me back was a focus. Here I was coming to the end and I had no idea what I was going to focus on, so I stopped.

Now, I think I may have started to get the lenses in focus. Something is becoming clearer and maybe that will lead me to finish a degree someday, but I think I will use the blog to start to work out my thoughts and to get me writing again.

I call this focus The Truth Project, for now. I am becoming fascinated by discovering the truth behind positions, especially, positions taken up by the Christian Right. I'm seeing that truth (as in facts) are regularly being distorted to support untenable positions. I was struck by this in two cases.

The first case is outlined in the book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul by Kenneth R. Miller. The court case happened in 2005 in Dover, PA. It spelled the end of the whole Intelligent Design movement and should have been the end of Creation Science in any rational world. The judge from that case ended up giving a severe tongue lashing to the side that represented the ID movement. They had distorted facts, twisted evidence, and dodged truth through language games. So the more "religious" side, when put up against a wall in a court of law began to, basically, lie.

The second case is the arguments against gay marriage. I need to get my links together, but, again, the side that was against was accused of distortions, denial of truth, etc. I will try to update this again, but I can tell from even my teaching experience that I find that the stability and support of the child from within the family is what makes a difference in a child's life. If there is love and a home to go to, the child will go far in school and life. If the home is broken, unstable, unpredictable, and the child is shuffled between different "homes," the chances for success become less. Not impossible, of course, but less. So where is the truth? I'm finding it is not found in the Christian Right's interpretation of marriage.

I am looking for patterns. My working hypothesis is that the Christian or Religious Right's intellectual position is under attack due to the fact that public support is weakening. The baby boomers, who seem to make up most of this belief system are literally dying off. Discovering the truth is going to be more difficult since the Christian Right do enjoy a lot of power in our media and in politics. However, I'm finding that the more I read and try to piece together facts, I'm coming down more and more strongly on the progressive side.

For the first time in a long time, I'm excited about writing and exploring deeper ideas. I may not finish the Master's, but I'm determined to look for the truth. I believe that God is the God of Truth, so I can't be on the wrong path,even though many in my Christian circles will shake their heads and believe that I'm on the road to hell.

What Does Good Education Look Like?

I had to come up with 2 or three sentences about what good education looks like. I believe that a good education is human, so is full of contradictions and actions that are both positive and negative. For example there is no forgiving without something TO forgive.  I couldn't think of sentences, only verbs, so I made this Wordle:

Now I'm thinking I should have included words like boring, confronting, calming. What other words could I have used?

Godsmacked

I'm taking a teachers' course this week on how to write units from a Christian perspective. Now, you may not know this, but writing and organizing a unit under one big question is hard work. It's a lot of thinking and writing collaboratively with your grade level partners that you don't normally have time for during the course of a school year.

Now, I had such high hopes for this course because it said that in the original description that you would have 3 complete units. I, and my colleagues, assumed this would save tons of time come September and have a good chunk of the year planned. I mean, 3 units can take until after Christmas to complete!

Well, as the course progressed, we found that 3 was a very high number and that "complete" meant, according to the instructor, 3 "skeletons" of units because "units are not finished until you  actually teach them. That's when you flesh them out!" Meh. What a rip-off. So the grumpies set in. I became more and more negative as the first two days went by and we were given a total of maybe one hour or so to actually write our units. I was discouraged as the instructor kept repeating and drumming into us the importance of what are called "Through Lines." For  example, one Through Line is called Servant Worker. If a unit was targeting the idea of Servant Worker, then the students would be led through an activity that involved actual service to the community.

Today, I woke up dreading today thinking that what we were to do, a field trip to Granville Island in Vancouver, would be a "time filler" that would keep us away from precious unit writing time. Our assignment  was a bit more interesting than just a way to pass a couple hours. We needed to take pictures of things that represent each Through Line and present them to class. We were broken into groups of 3. Of course we had no choice about who we went with. Teachers do this. I do this. Students hate this. I hated this, too, I realized. My group was two other guys, one I know quite well, one I just met today. Both of them love and know Granville Island well. Both of them were excited about one thing: The Granville Island Brewery.One of the guys had free passes to a tasting tour of the brewery. Now the guy I know already says, "Well, Matt doesn't drink at all." (It's true, I don't. It's for many different reasons, none of which are religious.) I said I'm not offended by it, I just won't drink it. They talk me into it and we're off to the brewery. I'm wondering what I'm getting myself into as I'm being told the beer-making process is quite fascinating in itself (Turns out it is. I know what malt and hops are now. I learned something new!)

We get there and find out that the tour had enough people and already started. The next tour is too late for us to catch our bus back on time, so we can't do the tour. The lady there (I feel sooo guilty for not remembering to ask for her name now) says she'll happily do a tasting session with us, which my two accomplices readily agree to. I go with them, thinking I will just listen and learn. She looks at me and astounds me with what she does next. She offers me a free ice tea or soda (organic, locally made, of course!). That may seem like a "so what" moment to others, but, for me, at that moment, I felt God's grace. She was acting as a Community Builder (yup, that's a Through Line) to me. She was not allowing me to feel left out and including me. I chose the root beer you see in the picture. It was really good. I felt like, "Yes, I do belong here. Right now, this is right."

I was Godsmacked while I was there. Smacked so hard that I suddenly understood, in a deeper and more profound way what these Through Lines mean. I was smacked upside the head by God through an act of generosity at, of all places, a brewery! I guess this course is worth it after all.

"They" Is "Us"

Interesting discussion in staff room the other day: The assertion was made that we should rethink the term "Special Education Student" because "Aren't all students 'special'?" The proposition is that we should eliminate the term in everyday speech, although we would have to keep the term for government funding. Essentially, then, should we just keep the term "on paper"? (If that is even possible, for how can term still exist, but never be spoken? Is it possible to have a word exist only as a term for one purpose, i.e., government funding, but not exist at all outside that purpose?)

What is at the heart of this discussion? We want to embrace inclusion, especially as a Christian community, and reject exclusion, which is anti-Christian by definition. (Then there can rise the whole side discussion, which came up after awhile during this staff room discussion, of how different Christian groups do practice exclusion, i.e., Anabaptist churches not allowing membership to persons only baptized as infants.) We want to embrace the whole and resist the labels that lead to defining some group as "the excluded".

Which brings me to another thought and that is how much I am becoming interested in how we use the word "they" and "them" in everyday discussion. Listen for it. Especially try to determine the assumptions behind the use of the word. As Christians we are told there is no distinction between classes, gender, etc. so we struggle with the use of the word "them" In the same discussion a definite line was drawn between Muslim and Christian, for example. Are those of the Muslim faith to be "them"? Is "they" just our common phrase identifying the Other? Aren't we supposed to embrace and include the Other?

We are told constantly in Christian circles that all are made in the image of God and therefore "we" share a commonality with "they"  "They" is "us" for all purposes.

Cleaning out the Cobwebs

I hate Mondays. I've been up since three, which usually happens to me on Monday mornings. I've been struggling with insomnia since elementary school, so I'm kind of used to it by now.

What happens, is I wake up early and the thoughts of the whole week run through my head. For example, this morning, I was repeatedly singing a song from church in my head, analyzing the latest episode of The Walking Dead, and going over the different things I need to do for school in the coming weeks. Report cards being a big part of that list.

Yesterday, I found that I was unusually alert and a bit restless. Oddly enough, the devotional I read was on Philippians 4:6-7:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Worrying comes naturally to me and, I assume, most people. I've been given lots of nuggets of wisdom on worrying over the years. The one that really stuck with me was from another teacher when I was in Bogota: "Notice how most of what we worry about never happens?"

After all that, I found myself in Mission Sunday in my church and the focus was on the specific area of Guadalajara, Mexico. The speaker was someone I know from my Colombia days, Trever Godard, who is now raising funds for a discipleship centre in that city. As I heard him and thought through what I have done in the past and am doing now, I was amazed at how far I have come. I'm amazed at God's sustaining hand through all the things I worried about. I'm amazed at how he has stayed with me, despite my worrying,which, let's face it, is a problem of faith. Worrying is not believing that God will be there.

After I got home and throughout the morning my restlessness increased, so I began to finally clean my nightstand and battle the dust and cobwebs that had built up over, I'm not kidding, years. I can prove it because in the pile on my nightstand I found two certificates from Abbotsford Christian School for 10 years of service and for 15 years of service. So, this nightstand hasn't been cleaned for at least 5 years. I also tackled the box of articles and books from when I was working on my Master's degree. I stopped when I went back to school. I now realize that I couldn't really do it back then because of my struggles with anxiety and depression.

The idea of going back to finish the degree is now the biggest thing in the back of my mind, as if I need another thing. However, I find that the idea of beginning to comb through the debris and to begin communicating with Trinity Western again not such an overwhelming prospect. It's as if the whole journey of the past 5 years or so has been one of shaking out the cobwebs, clearing out the dust bunnies and learning that no matter what I don't need to be anxious, for Jesus is there.

 

Boundaries and Control

The biggest issues with my struggles to live more peacefully within myself are the ideas of boundaries and control.

Control is the biggie. I noticed when I was on Gabriola Island that I was more relaxed and really liked it. I realized as I went on that the reason I was relaxed was probably that I wasn't trying to control others and my surroundings so much. I just let things be. The advantage of going to the same place for vacation is that you can notice differences in your reactions, I guess. I wasn't concerned with how others did things or if they did them "right." This has given me insight when I've returned to school to recognize when some tension is building inside me. Am I trying to control others or events? I've struggled a bit with this in the past week and I keep reminding myself of what the wise Jesuit said to an initiate: "You are not God. This is not heaven. Don't be an ass." Wiser words I have rarely read about how to live in community!

Boundaries is another issue that I've only just realized. Sometimes I hear about another teacher who is going through a hard time and think that the school isn't handling it "correctly" and I actually waste a lot of time in being angry on their behalf. What a waste! "You are not God. This is not heaven. Don't be an ass." I should be letting this self-made problem go and put them in God's hands through prayer. I should be a listening ear or just assist as the times come up. Look for ways to serve. If they ask advice, volunteer it humbly. I perceive this as a "boundary" issue. I need to stop entering in and being angry on behalf of others and learn to pray and assist.

Hidden in Plain Sight

I'm reading The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ,  during my time here on Gabriola Island. I'm finding the books to be inspiring and reminding me that God communicates with us through our everyday experiences. I have the rental house to myself today and I've spent it walking and taking some pictures. Each one represents an encounter, a time when I felt an inward peace. God making me remember that this is a time of rest after such a challenging school year. God chooses to regularly speak to us through events, people, places. Times when we feel joy or even sadness. There seems to be more going on as we encounter joy in the little things. "In such uncommon longings, hidden in plain sight in our lives, does God call us."

I took a walk and I found these flowers, that look like small bells and I'm just fascinated by how they look. I am attracted to them just because I'm in a different place. Have I never bother to notice these flowers in Abbotsford? I don't know. I'm just enjoying them NOW. I used to be frantic about how time passed and could get quite depressed thinking that what is NOW is only a memory soon. Soon I will be home and not able to touch, smell or see these flowers or live this moment. That view of time drove me to depression. I would lose the wonder of the NOW because I knew it would soon be PAST. It's very hard to explain, but I think writers like Martin and others would lead me to realize that the accumulation of joyful times is only adding to my faith in God. Indeed, the sum total of all of these moments are deepening my understanding of God who is always NOW: "I AM".

I was on the deck reading quietly and a deer came quietly through the grass and began nibbling away only a few meters from where I was sitting. I stopped reading and enjoyed the moment and knew God was telling me to just "Be still and know that I am God." It's OK that this will be PAST. It is only adding to my understanding and bringing me closer to Someone who is never PAST. Interestingly, as I am finishing writing this, the whole family came up from the beach right up to the backyard where the one was before. Now it is two adults and one spotted fawn. I wasn't quick enough with the camera, but you'll just have to take my word for it that the trio was there.

Not alone in this after all...

As I've come to the end of another school year, I've realized that I'm not alone in this struggle. As personal issues came more and more overwhelming, I realized that I absolutely had to depend not only on God, but on those that God has placed in my life. I'm in the process of thinking about writing thank you notes to those who helped me throughout the school year. I'm not one to give gifts to so many usually, but so many have supported me in so many ways. I've seen with fresh eyes what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ. The verse I think I'll refer to in each card is Romans 12: 5 ~ "Each part gets its meaning from the whole, not the other way around." (MSG). 

Where I have been...

I doubt if I have very faithful readers, but you'll notice a humongous gap between this post and my last post. It's coming to the end of a very interesting school year and I think I will begin posting again to just sort of work out my thoughts and feelings.

I'm struggling with what to reveal on such a public forum, so I'll keep it simple now to try to get myself started. I had a lot of personal issues to deal with this year that made me realize how important my faith in God was, how important my family is to me and how important it is to have a community around me to get me through the day to day. It's very difficult to admit that you can't do life alone and that you are dependent on others, but I believe this was the big reveal for me in this past year.

I will try to write more regularly because summer is coming and I believe it will be vital for me to reflect in writing some of the thoughts and feelings I have. I will end this short post with the poem/prayer that really helped me through this year. I keep this posted above my desk at school and I've read and reread it many times.

PATIENT TRUST

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We would like to skip the intermediate stages.

we are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet, it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability--

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually--let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time,

(that is to say, grace) and circumstances

acting on your own good will

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

from Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits

The Rob Bell Kerfluffle

I'm finding the debate about Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, to be very interesting and perhaps revealing of a fundamental struggle that is going on in the evangelical church (at least in North America, where the evangelical church is struggling for survival, IMHO. It's thriving and growing in other parts of the world.)

Some interesting things about this debate are that it began to get ferocious before the book was even released and many of the same things are being said by lots of people who I don't believe have read the book. I haven't read the book, either, but I'm writing about the debate about the book, so I thought it would be good to get down my pre-reading impressions first. (I did buy it. It's on my rather large "To Read in Future" pile.)

The National Post gives an interesting overview of the debate. The whole argument of the book is summed up by Bell's account of seeing a note taped to a Gandi quote that was part of a display at his church: "Reality check: he's in hell." Bell's honest questions are where the debate begins:

Within the national post interview, an evangelical writer (who I've never heard of - Jimmy Spencer - I can't help but wonder from what he says how long he will be considered "evangelical") says this about Bell:

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther said Christians had the right to read the Bible for themselves and define it for themselves. What you’re seeing in Rob is the use of the same motif. I don’t know if Rob Bell is a new Martin Luther, but at the time of the Reformation Martin Luther wasn’t Martin Luther.

There is an erosion that has taken place within evangelical communities today and Rob Bell strikes at the heart of that divide between whether you think God is inclusive or exclusive.

The worst thing you can be accused of in many evangelical settings today is to be called a "universalist." I've heard it a few times in the recent past as a "you don't want to go there" aside in conversations with other Christians. However, I must say that I would rather be accused of being a universalist, than be accused of being the most contemptible of religious types: "fundamentalist."

Another thing I noticed from the article was an incredibly ignorant statement by someone at Christianity Today, which makes me realize why I no longer subscribe to this magazine:

For Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, what concerns him about Love Wins is what he calls Rob Bell’s failure to behave like a real pastor.

He leaves readers with more questions because he hasn’t really done his job as a teacher, which is what a minister is supposed to be. Instead, he has become a provocateur.

You walk away thinking this is what Rob Bell teaches, not what the Bible teaches.

This is incredibly naive for two different reasons: Jesus did not answer all questions - he told stories. He didn't even explain what most of his parables meant and left his disciples confused more often than not. Also, a quality of a good teacher is someone who always leaves his students with more questions than answers. A very exasperated grade 3 student once blurted out to me: "Can't you ever give us a straight answer?" Well, no, I can't because I'm a teacher and I'm trying to be a good one.

Do you know what Mark Galli is describing as a good teacher? A fundamentalist. I hate that word and that way of thinking.

If anything does lead to hell, the fundamentalist way of thinking (no matter what religion) does.
Update: Here's an interesting article about the history behind the rejection of hell and universalism. Long story short: Bell's not the first to say these things and be rejected by the church.

Comic Sans is evil, apparently

I've been enjoying April Fools day as much as I ever do. It's great having the day off from teaching (it's the last day of Spring Break.)  Teaching on April Fools day is sometimes an awful thing.  Once I had kids dump water all over my chair (it's not plastic, but cushioned) and say "April Fools!".  I wasn't thrilled at the idea of not having a proper desk chair for the few days it took to completely air dry out.  Then there was the time that they replaced all the water in my water bottle with white vinegar.  Fun times. (Note the use of a period.)

Now our dear friends at Google have this April Fools joke where you begin to type the word "Helvetica" into the search bar and it automatically switches to the much hated font Comic Sans.  Now, it was only recently that I discovered how much Comic Sans is hated by the wider world. Being in an elementary school, I tend to run into Comic Sans quite a bit.  I wasn't sure why until I ran into this article from The New Republic, which says that actual research went into this.  It turns out that Comic Sans is "the most popular of the four fonts the researchers tested on children."
There is actually a website: bancomicsans.com which is, well, pretty self-explanatory. And here's another article on it from the UK: "Why does everyone hate Comic Sans so much?" Comic Sans was invented by Microsoft (Shake fists at them!) to help the no longer used "Microsoft Bob" be more kid friendly as it would explain to the kids how to use Microsoft. Those were the 90s, when kids still didn't know much about word processing, I guess. Interesting quote from that article by a graphic designer:

Comic Sans just isn't designed well. It was never made to be printed and yet it is everywhere I look. Hardly a day goes by when I don't see it in an inappropriate setting. I would just appeal to people to be more thoughtful. When I get an invitation to the funeral of a friend and it is written in Comic Sans, I just find that thoughtless. It is an epidemic.

I used to use Comic Sans, but I did end up switching to other fonts for my everyday fonts because I just got tired of it very quickly.  I usually use Tahoma as the default font.  I know others in my school who prefer Arial, which I like also.

So for my last day of Spring Break, I've used my time searching out all the Comic Sans hatred and tried to get Rachel Maddow to trend on Twitter (#maddow) - It's her birthday and...oh, nevermind...
I don't really have such a visceral hatred of Comic Sans, though. I just find it mildly irritating due to its overuse.  Now when it comes to Times New Roman - I can get a little violent.  So, watch it.

My Favorite iPhone Apps

Just for anyone who might be interested -

1) Twitter - I like the basic Twitter app - it does everything I feel it needs to do. Although I would love it if it had a "retweet old school" option like I do with the Chrome browser. (UPDATE: I just noticed that it does allow you to quote tweets with an newer update I got automatically. The annoying thing now is, it puts quote marks around the whole thing and you can't delete the quote marks to make a nice, clean RT.)

2) Merriam-Webster's Dictionary - I only discovered this one recently. You can do a voice search and it has an audio clip for each word. Ever wonder how a word you've only seen written actually should sound? This app solves that issue. It also has a "word of the day" button which is cool, too.

3) Youversion's Bible app is brilliant. You have online access to most Bible versions in many different languages. You can also download many of those to your phone to use when outbid wireless range, like when I'm at church. I can quickly view the same reference in NIV, NLT, The Message, KJV, etc. (UPDATE: The latest update has so improved the function of this app. I'm wondering if it will always be free, now. It's worth paying for, though.)

4) Google - voice search on Google. I use this at school a lot.

5) Weather Eye - This is the Weather Network's app - I find it more useful than the iPhone's default weather app.  Canadians are really "into" the weather, so the Canadian Weather Network's app being way cool should not be a surpise.

6) Google Translate - Speak into the phone.  It instantly translates what you say into most any language you can think of.  Most language have an audio button.  Press it and you hear it spoken in that language! My only beef: Yiddish doesn't have an audio button.  I really want to hear that one!

7) Canpages - The Canadian Yellow pages with audio recognition.  Speak whatever business you want and it gives you all the contact information you need.  Press the phone number and you're calling them.  It also has white pages, but you have to type the person's name in.

8) Flixster - Great for local movie showtimes.  Now I always know what's playing close by and when.  This is put out by Rotten Tomatoes, so you get all the reviews linked to the movie you're wondering about, too.

9) IMBD - Another movie app (I love movies).  This has all the info you can get from the IMBD website, including the top 250, info on actors, directors, etc.

10) Cowbell! - I put this here because I actually do use this in the classroom to get the kids' attention sometimes and I just couldn't leave the list at 9.

I'll leave the list at that so far.  There's a bunch of others that I use, but the above are ones that I've downloaded and use quite frequently.

All of the above apps, by the way, have one thing in common: They're free apps!  I'm really amazed by the high quality of even free apps, although that whole "I swear I'll only stick to free apps" resolution when I first got the phone really didn't work out.  It's just soooo hard when the Apple people put apps for their store right on the phone!

President Obama is a Christian (Get Over It!)

I'm amazed how many people have a hard time believing that Obama is a Christian.  First of all, I counter: How do we know ANYONE is a "real Christian"?  I mean, if you do understand the Bible at all, then you know that only God really knows who is real.  Jesus said, "Why do you call me good? Only God is truly good." (Mark 10:18)  Or how about Jesus' rebuke that not everyone who calls him "Lord" will be acknowledged by him as a follower. (Matthew 7:22)

Secondly: Please consider that the word "Christian" has almost as many as different definitions as there are people who claim to be "Christian." I reject the notion that Christian must imply "Conservative Evangelical American," which is the hidden message that hides behind many of the diatribes against President Obama.

Thirdly: Listen to the President's recounting of his own past at the recent National Prayer Breakfast (below).  No, he did not grow up in a "Christian" home, but he became a Christian through conversion later in life.  So, he actually chose Christianity deliberately, not as some default position inherited via his family background.  Isn't this, then, an indication of someone who is actually the kind of Christian that the "born again" Christians are bragging about on Sundays?  I find it hard to believe that Evangelicals would have an issue with this testimony if were uttered by anyone else in their church on any given Sunday.

Lastly: Keep in mind something that I heard a musician say on the Drew Marshall Show : "When the word "Christian" is applied to anything other than a person, it's just a marketing strategy."  (I completely forgot who the person was - apologies to whomever.  I also am not sure of the exact quote.)  The question that I want to leave readers with, then is:  When you hear the word "Christian" being used, ask yourself "What are they selling?"  Now I'm not trying to imply, like the New Atheists, that all that is being "sold" is evil, but I will say it's important to keep in mind that ancient warning: "Buyer beware."

Shake up at MSNBC? *YAWN*

I got into msnbc for a while and watched the line up: Hardball, The Ed Show, Countdown and Rachel Maddow show. After a while (yeah, I'm slow), I realized that the first three shows were just repeating the same talking points based on the current news cycle. Nothing new that couldn't be figured out reading the headlines in the NY Times in 5 minutes. The only exception to this is Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow does not follow whatever the current talking point playbook is. She actually investigates something and attempts to discover the truth at the core of it. Sort of like 60 Minutes can do on its best nights. Except, Ms. Maddow does it 5 nights a week with humor and with something that is almost completely absent from most newscasts: a sense of cautious optimism. She actually is not going to go down the path of "Something I disagree with happened and I'm going to milk it as some kind of megadisaster for the USA."

Now Keith Olbermann, unsuprisingly, has been fired or let go or whatever So? He was just another part of the angry line up. Nothing really unique in his show, except for the Oddball sequence. Kind of a calmer Ed Schultz, although a bit more rational than that. Now they're going to give the angry Young Turk, Cenk Uygur, his own show. He's part of the screamers from the left who are more anti- than pro-Obama. If Obama smiles at a conservative, it's considered a major loss to some of these screamers. Also, MSNBC is a TV business and the ratings are more important than politics or reality or whatever.

Some of the lefties I follow on Twitter are up in arms about this whole Olbermann thing. I don't see the problem. Shows get cancelled all the time and hosts replaced. It's about ratings and making money in the Fox dominated world of cable news. It's just another TV show. In fact, if he gets a gig eventually almost ANYWHERE else, he'll get more exposure and higher ratings. The thing I'm more annoyed about is how so many don't give Rachel Maddow a chance BECAUSE she's on msnbc and people assume she's just as angry and repetitive as an Ed Schultz or Olbermann.

Here's hoping Rachel Maddow gets "let go" and ends up somewhere else with a larger audience.

I just discovered...

I can actually blog with my iPhone! This is my first post with the phone, so I hope you all can forgive the shortness of the post. I'm getting a bit faster typing with one finger, though. I'm amazed at how easy it is to use the touchscreen keyboard on this thing! Now does this mean lots more short posts? Only time will tell!

Music in the 21st Century

I was just at the library and they had a bin of CDs that they were selling 2 for $2 and I bought an oldie, but a goodie: "Ella and Basie" put out by Verve records. No hesitation in buying them and if you're reading this wondering who Ella an Basie are, you're probably in the wrong blog.

Anyway, I was listening to this CD on the way home and I suddenly realized how rare it is for my daughters to hear the same music that I hear. We have individualized music so much, that when one person listens to something, the whole family isn't automatically hearing it, too.

Growing up, I heard my parents' music often. To this day I associate Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash with my father. I hear any kind of pop music from the '50s, especially Jerry Lee Lewis and the Coasters, and I think of my mother.

I wonder if my kids will think of any kind of music and think of me. We're always listening with headphones on, in our own private world now.

America is Israel's "Crack Dealer"

Thomas Friedman's Essay re: Israel and Palestine

I was nodding my head so vigorously I just about got a cramp reading the above essay.  The USA needs to just stop with the aid to Israel, the constant attempts at negotiations and let them deal with it on their own:

Oil is to Saudi Arabia what unconditional American aid and affection are to Israel — and what unconditional Arab and European aid and affection are to the Palestinians: a hallucinogenic drug that enables them each to think they can defy the laws of history, geography and demography. It is long past time that we stop being their crack dealers. At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America, we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded, waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest: negotiate a two-state deal. Shame on them, and shame us. You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences

Friedman then goes on to illustrate that the aid that is flowing to Israel could be better used for assisting the many US communities that are having to cut back on basics, such as fire departments and education. We need to realize that we are in a co-dependent kind of relationship with Israel and the aid that we're constantly supplying them with is only lengthening the process.

I'm reminded of a Start Trek episode where Kirk & Co. discover that the war two planets have been fighting for centuries has been fought by computers. The computers do war games and determine the number of casualties. The people are then selected by the computers to go to disintegration chambers. There is no damage to buildings and no famine or any of that ugly stuff that makes war disagreeable.

Kirk destroys the disintegration chambers and asserts that they have to deal with the ugliness of war or negotiate on their own to stop the killing.

This is basically what Friedman is arguing in this essay: We need to just simply stop and let them deal with the ugliness of war or realize they need to negotiate honestly with each other, knowing that compromise will need to occur. If they want US mediators without conditions, then fine, but stop the aid.

Friedman's conclusion:

It’s all a fraud. America must get out of the way so Israelis and Palestinians can see clearly, without any obstructions, what reckless choices their leaders are making. Make no mistake, I am for the most active U.S. mediation effort possible to promote peace, but the initiative has to come from them. The Middle East only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them.

Twitter as Newspaper for 21st Century

I'm now a die-hard Twitter fan, after previously dissing it.  I think sometimes, I get impatient with the new "newness" of something.  I guess that comes with being 45 and a bit of an old grump about change.

Anyway, now I am regularly calling Twitter my "21st century newspaper" to those who wonder what on earth I'm doing with it.  I read the tweets every morning with my coffee and click on the links that I'm interested in, much like scanning the headlines in the newspaper.

I feel like I'm getting a good sense of the world, rather than just the US, by subscribing to tweets from Al Jazeera English, BBC and various Canadian outlets.  It also saves on the time it would take jumping from site to site.

I don't really care who follows and doesn't follow me - I don't find that Twitter always makes for a good chat with someone unless you both happen to be tweeting at the exact same moment.  Replies can often get buried, but I've noticed that I pick up on them a lot faster when I use my iPhone for Twitter.

Anyway, I'm tweeting a lot now and those silly little random thoughts are going out on Twitter rather than on the blog.   For my twitter page, simply click on the link on the right of this article.

Imago Dei

I've begun teaching a grade 4 class here and I was talking one time with them about the concept of what it means to be created in the image of God. All of the kids, except for one, insisted that the idea of image was a physical one: that God had a real body. The one child who disagreed kept repeating, "No, God is a spirit!" Finally, I did weigh in that the one child was the one who had the idea and that the imago dei, or image of God, was not about the physical.

Now, we look at children and understand that developmentally, they go through stages of thinking and believing from the concrete to the more abstract. The idea of imago dei as a literal, physical concept is almost impossible for children to shake until they acheive a certain level.

It has occured to me recently that fundamentalist Christians who take umbrage with the concept that we have evolved at all are, in a sense, stuck at the level of thinking that imago dei is a physical idea. They struggle with, as I have in the past, the idea that we are just a few ticks off, genetically speaking, from the chimpanzee. The concept that we are mammals is uncomfortable for a fundamentalist and my idea here is that, in some unconscious way, they can't get over the idea that imago dei is physical is some way.

This is yet another way that fundamentalist thinking is really a betrayal of the core doctrines of Christianity.

The Truth is Not Always Easy to Discover

I read that there will be renewed Peace Talks between Israel and Palestine. Before I could get my hopes up, the pundits started saying that it will fail. I thought they were just being negative, which is partially true, but then I read an Op-Ed in the New York Times which got me thinking:

Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us

I highly recommend reading it in its entirety, but the basic point is that when we consider what finally worked in the negotiations in Ireland, we realize that it happened when everyone was allowed to come to the table:

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

A parallel can be seen with the American refusal to speak to the Palestinian party Hamas, which decisively won elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006. Asked what role Hamas would have in the renewed talks, Mr. Mitchell answered with one word: “None.” No serious analyst believes that peace can be made between Palestinians and Israelis without Hamas on board, any more than could have been the case in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein and the I.R.A.

So there can be no peace unless Hamas is allowed to come to the table without the preconditions that hard right wing Israeli government wants to set on them. The preconditions basically ask Hamas to not be Hamas.

I recall that the difference between a "privateer" and a "pirate" in history depends on which side you were on. If you were favoring England, then French "privateers" are seen as "pirates", for example. Finding the truth in historical events is difficult, which is why history can be so fascinating.

This brings up the question: Is Hamas actually as much of a terrorist's party as our pro-Israeli press tends to paint it? Is Israel any less guilty of "terrorist acts"? Are we just viewing it through a Zionist lens?

Keep in mind that having Hamas come to the table doesn't mean everyone approves of everything Hamas has done. It also doesn't mean we should just blindly assume Israel, or the US for that matter, has always done the "right" thing. The I.R.A. weren't a bunch of boy scouts, either.