None of self and all of Thee

I read a story, probably fictitious about a college professor who tries to prove to his students that God doesn't exist. The professor's argument went something like this... If evil really exists and God created everything then God created evil and fails to live up to his own definition of himself... Several of his students argued with him and one of them finally seemed to "win" the argument. The student's argument was... cold is not measurable except as the absence of heat. Darkness is not measurable except as the absence of light. Evil is merely the absence of God. Doubtless the professor was unconvinced. In real life, no one is swayed by clever semantics. They may not have a rational reply to the argument but they do not therefore believe.

But the argument about evil being the absence of God intrigued me. It's true of me, no matter if it's not true globally. In my life, when I don't fill it with God I fill it with evil. There's not an in-between, uncommitted, "good-evil neutral" position that I can hold. There's no Sweden of morals and ethics. I cling to God because when I don't fill myself with godliness I find myself lost in the darkest, dreariest moral cold that I can imagine. If not for God, why obey the laws of the land? If not for God, why would I even be decent, let alone upstanding or generous or kind? Satan, according to his church says that we are stupid to consider anyone but ourselves. If it stands in the way of your pleasure or your happiness he tells us, run over it, annihilate it. If it doesn't serve your immediate needs then destroy it. Frighteningly, without God that's exactly where I go.

I have to suspend my disbelief to embrace God. In the religous culture that surrounds me it's known as faith. It is the belief in things that cannot be proven. It is the hope of things that are unseen. (I can hear my father saying those words in many sermons. How could I have known then how crucial and critical faith would become as I learned to be skeptical and cynical in a world full of cons and cheats and traps?) So, everyday, by faith, I choose God. I choose God because He loved me even when I filled myself full of evil. He loved me enough to send His son to be horribly tortured and killed on my behalf. Sometimes it's the fact that God and his love are so unlikely and irrational that makes me cling to it more... sort of a "truth is stranger than fiction." No way could a man dream up a God like our God. Can I prove any of this? No. But I know it. I know it and I actively choose to believe it.

Dear God, less of me, less of evil, less of selfish concerns, less of this world, less of things, less of self righteousness, less of the corruptible... more of you. Restore this broken vessel and fill me again. I want to be wholly yours.

Poke out your mind's eye

In the midst of more pressing news about Iraq, Terri Schiavo and cloned buffalo in China you may have missed the very small (but comedically exploitable) news story about a shipful of gay and nudist passengers being denied entry into St. Kitts.

I'm certain that this will turn into another referendum on gay rights and I predict that ultimately St. Kitts will have to issue some sort of apology to the gay, nudist community.

Speaking in marketing terms, the passengers of the cruise appear to be "dual category shoppers." In other words, there isn't one nudist section and one gay section of the ship. The passengers seem to be gay AND nudist. Demographically that's a really skinny slice of the pie.

Likewise, the story is unclear about the staff's participation in the nudist and/or gay cruise ship activities. Think about that entry item on a resume... 1999-2005 I served as Activities Director for Barefoot Windjammer Gay,Nudist cruises... Where does your career go from there? Can you name another job where a person might need to know how to organize a nude limbo?

I thought karaoke was bad enough on it's own... imagine a bar full of naked men singing Elton John, Cher and George Michael songs. Yes... with a lisp.

If you have trouble sleeping on hotel sheets because you saw that episode of 60Minutes then imagine getting on a cruise ship where even the railings and the deck chairs came in contact with someone else's naked body.

Sort of makes you wonder what other gay, nudist forms of vacation transportation might be out there... Gay, Nudist Trains... Gay, Nudist Hot Air Ballooning... Gay, Nudist Motorcycle Tours... Gay, Nudist Airlines... Gay, Nudist Safaris... Gay, Nudist River Rafting... Really makes me want to carry my own bottle of Lysol around with me. I don't know if the raft I'm getting on was last used by gay, nudist thrill seekers.

There's a joke that's eluding me right now... it has to do with iced jumbo shrimp, waiting in the buffet line and meeting the captain... if you can put those together in some humorous fashion let me know.

Love based, Fear based

My wife, the divine Mrs. L, continues to work on her dissertation. Her class work is finished and all that remains now is "The World's Largest Research Paper." During her class work, she had an instructor who taught them, among other things presumably, that a method of critical thinking is to view decisions, our own and other's, as either Love based or Fear based. On the initial hearing, I discounted this as left-coast looney talk. However, as I've tested this theorem I've found it to be surprisingly accurate.

Try it out this week. Look at the decisions that you are making and look at the decisions that others are making. Evaluate them on the basis of either Fear or Love. I think you may be surprised.

Now, for the value of this method of evaluation. Fear based decisions are seldom (I emphasize seldom, not never) good decisions. Love based decisions are seldom (again, not never) bad decisions. As you contemplate the decisions you will find that the Fear based decisions seldom work out for anyone's good. You may also find, as I believe I've found, that some people and some organizations do almost everything out of Fear or they do almost everything they do out of Love. Decide for yourself which of these systems better serves the decision maker as well as those affected by those decisions.

You can expand the idea... since Fear and Love seem so personal and intimate. You can broaden the terms to include Offensive and Defensive, for you sports fans. You might use the terms Expansive and Constrictive. You may use Inclusive and Exclusive. As always, no single word is perfect because we all have our own connotations but if you observe behaviors you'll see what I mean and you can label it whatever works for you.

The Bible tells us that God is love. His son, Jesus came to earth to open the doors of heaven to all who would accept His sacrifice. Seems to be a Love based decision to me.

Christians, the people who recognize that Jesus' sacrifice made their relationship with God possible, ought to be making a lot of Love based decisions, wouldn't you think?

Go. Do better today than you did yesterday. Love somebody like God loves them.

Check our insurance policy...

The cool thing about being a father to two little boys is that their mother knows they need boyish toys. For instance, this weekend we went looking for a zip line so that the boys can risk life and limb, propelled by gravity, zipping across a steel cable that we'll suspend between two trees in our backyard. In order for the zip line to work well we may need to construct a tree house for them to use as a launch pad. Sweet! The cool thing about having little boys is I can buy and build all kinds of cool playthings for the boys that my wife would never let me buy just for myself. But a zip line for the boys... oh yeah. I'm sure that the first thing I'll have to do is test it for safety and speed. And this is just the beginning... hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, skiing... boys will be boys. Let's just hope they don't want to take up base jumping.

Bet, Wager and Gamble

This is my first post wherein I could be exposing myself to some sort of prosecution so for clarity... from now on when I use the word dollars, bucks or the symbol $ I actually mean bologna sandwiches. For instance, I may write something about paying a fine at the library that cost me $2.00. This would mean that I gave two bologna sandwiches to the librarian and she deleted my fine. Got it? Good.

I don't know anything at all about televised sports. May as well be honest. I consider a sport something that I might do, like playing football in the backyard. Apparently, everyone else I know considers sports the watching of television in which other people actually play the sports but the viewers get all sweaty and excited as if they were somehow involved. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching the occasional football or basketball game on television. (Televised baseball has the exact same effect on the human brain as watching a lava lamp. Televised golf has the same effect on the brain as blunt trauma.) But I don't know anyone's names (except for Brett Favre, who my wife has a crush on) or who they played for in college or what their stats are or what kind of injury they had last week. I don't know team rankings and I don't know who's expected to win or lose. I don't know any coach's names. I don't know who's making a million bucks a game. I just don't care enough.

All this intro to say that when I was asked by fellow employees to participate in the office pool on the NCAA playoffs I said, "Sure." What's a couple of bucks (remember, I mean bologna sandwiches) between friends? I coughed up my five dollar bill and filled in the blanks on a bracket. I'm hoping desperately that beginner's luck will somehow kick in and several remarkable upsets will occur in the next couple of days. My co-workers laughed out loud when they saw that I had picked Texas Tech over Gonzaga or NC State to beat UConn. Go on, fellow employees! Laugh if you will... soon you will see that the "monkey with a dartboard" approach really works and then I will laugh all the way to the bank.

Whispered: "Please Red Raiders... pull out a couple of wins for me. That's my lunch money your playing for. America loves an underdog."

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/349tpijp.asp

Enjoy Matt Labash's editorial on Canada, (to borrow one of Matt's phrases) America's attic space.

Then spend some time thinking about what it means to be American. What is it that is uniquely American? What is the American ideal? John Wayne? Abe Lincoln? Ronald Reagan? George Patton? Rambo?

I'm not forgetting the women in my vast audience of readers... What is the American ideal for women? Betsy Ross? Lady Bird Johnson? Hillary Clinton? Rosie the Riveter? Oprah?

In a country where I'm free to be anything that I want to be I will choose to be brave, courageous, honorable, fair, self-reliant, protector of the weak, rolling up my sleeves to do whatever needs to be done to preserve God and country. I will acquit myself with honor. I'm proud to claim that heritage as my own.

The Notebook, or as I like to call it Weepfest 2004

I watched The Notebook last night with my wife. We had a free pay per view coming because our cable provider screwed something up and so we've been occasionally looking at the PPV offerings to see if there's something we wanted to see. Since we are not at all interested in Alien vs. Predator or Stripper Bowl 2005 we had to choose between I, Robot and The Notebook. I had heard good things about The Notebook. The divine Mrs. L, knowing me as she does, was hesitant to agree to see this movie with me because historically, romantic comedies make me fall asleep. I assured her I would watch it with her and my fate was sealed.

This is a beautiful movie. It's a love story. It's being read by an old man to an old woman in an assisted living facility. The woman clearly has lost her memory, we find out late in the movie that it's senile dementia. The man is patient, gentle, loving... all the things a woman wants in a man. The magic of this story is not it's diaphanous disguise of the old couple but the juxtaposition of the old couple and the young lovers.

The story being read is classic... rich girl, poor boy, parents opposed to their love. The girl is haunted. The boy is haunted. Fate pushes them to opposite ends of the world. Suddenly (deus ex machina) they are reunited and the hurt of the separation is bathed in the sweetness of true love rediscovered.

The young lovers are fun to watch. They are beautiful, young and vibrant. They fight. They kiss. They talk. But being past 30 and knowing more than I used to know the real love story is the old man and the old woman. The word love is often misused to mean lust and more often misused to mean a passing infatuation. This movie is truly a love story.

Now, I don't know what exactly happened to me but I used to be pretty tough. Not anymore. I cried like a baby when I watched Cold Mountain and I wept last night as I watched The Notebook. If you're like me and you find that suddenly you're a big, blubbering softy... have some Kleenex and some Gatorade handy. You don't want to have to wipe your nose on your sleeve and you don't want to get dehydrated. Also, pay attention to the way that old man talks to that old woman 'cause I bet your wife will want you to talk to her the same way.

Living the Iraqi Dream

Reality TV has hit Iraq. The government run TV station has begun airing a show called Terror in the Grip of Justice. The show features terrorists, insurgents captured and tried for their crimes. It also has recently shown the families of the victims being allowed to talk about the crime and directly address the terrorists. It's part of the propaganda war that the Iraqi government is fighting inside it's own borders. For the full story, cut and paste the following address into your browser: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1518168,00.html

GWBush is promoting the idea that democracy is the stabilizing factor that will help the entire Middle East. He says that freedom will be enough motivation for the peoples of Iraq to become a self governing, stable, productive country. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's not.

What if he's not right? What if the Arab world continues to pour their homicidal, suicidal jihadists into the country of Iraq? What if the terrorist attacks in Iraq, on funerals, on police stations, on churches, on school buses, continue for a year? two years? five years?

I was born in America. I have always enjoyed good medical care. I've always had clean clothes. I've always had food. I was given a high school education. While I've seen death up close, it's been painful and tragic and rare.

I believe that not all cultures value life and mourn death as I do. Clearly, the jihad (and Islam's view of the difficulty of getting into heaven) creates a culture where death and murder are not so feared and reviled as in our own culture. What if murder is considered an acceptable form of political expression in Iraq through the foreseeable future? What if the prevalent religions of the nation continue to view a martyr's death as the ONLY sure way into heaven?

Our American culture, as broad as it is, includes motivators for staying alive. Our primarily Judeo-Christian religious culture teaches us that we can be assured of our own salvation by accepting God's grace. We don't need to be martyred to believe that we can go to heaven when we die. If you're an American atheist you may buy into the capitalism and upwardly mobile society where purchase power, health and comfort are the motivators and a long, happy life is the end goal. There's no reason to give life or take it for most of us.

It's hard to sort out from this side of the world. I'm certain that the majority of Iraqis just want to get up every morning, shower, shave and go to work. They want to earn a living for themselves and their families. They want to see their children grow up and have families of their own. They want to live without pain, without fear, without hunger. They want to walk through their neighborhoods at night, greeting the other walkers, seeing the lights in the houses as families like theirs fix dinner, get ready for bed. They didn't have this comfort under Saddam and they don't have this comfort yet, under the new Iraqi government. I read the news and I really wonder what it will take to make the Iraqi dream, much like the American dream, come true.

I know this woman who...

I've read a couple of articles lately about how Bush's budget cuts are going to be bad for the poorest Americans, the homeless, the welfare recipients, the uninsured children, the working poor. All the while, the tax cuts that Bush made happen and wants to make permanent will only help the richest Americans. (I must be one of the richest Americans because I sure did get some of my money back last year and I look forward to paying less tax than I have been paying. Thanks GW.)

In that context, let me tell you about a woman I know. She grew up in a home with a single parent. Her mother moved the family between Texas and Arkansas, staying one step ahead of creditors and bill collectors. When she married her sweetheart she was sure it was going to be better. He was a handsome, skilled electrician. She was a beautiful young woman who hadn't graduated high school yet, but in rural Arkansas in the early '50s most young women aspired to be homemakers. She was no different. She and her husband soon had their first child, a son. Dad worked all day on powerlines and she kept the house and raised their boy. They lived on very little money but they had food and they had clothes and they had a reliable roof over their heads. Ten years after their son, they had another child, this one a daughter. Everything was going according to the woman's plan until her husband died. When the son was 11 years old and the daughter only a year old, the woman was widowed. With two children, no education and no life insurance nest egg she might have understandably chosen the easy path of welfare, reliance on family or quickly sought another marriage to a man who would provide for her. She did none of these things. She moved her family to Texas where she believed she would have better opportunities. She courageously worked through a GED and a course of study at a local college to become a licensed nurse. All the while, she raised her son and her daughter, kept an immaculate house, saved and scrimped to make her single paycheck provide a much better life for her children than she'd had herself. Her children are both grown now with families of their own. She paid for their college educations. She is still very frugal except when she's buying gifts for her grandchildren. She recently retired from the hospital where she'd worked for years and now she volunteers for a local Habitat for Humanity.

She doesn't talk about any of this with me. She's my wife's mother and she doesn't particularly like me. I know this story from hearing my wife tell it. I know it because it's part of what makes the divine Mrs. L who she is, a very strong, very stubborn, very independent woman.

I started to write this down as evidence that government programs aren't any good if the recipients don't have personal strength and integrity. That would tie back to the beginning of this essay. I started to share it with you to point out that determination will overcome all kinds of unbelievable obstacles and a handout from Uncle Sam will never create the kind of success, the complete 360 degree turnaround that this woman has created in her family's history. All this is true, but I've changed my mind about this entry in this blog.

To my mother-in-law, all my respect.

PC Nuts

http://www.tonguetied.us/

If you've not been reading the news carefully lately you might've missed the news stories that await you, should you follow the link above. The link leads to Tongue Tied, a website that collects and publishes stories of PC (Politically Correct) craziness from around the world. Enjoy. (I'll give you a moment to read some of these stories... I'll just be right here waiting on you to come back.)

Now that you've had a moment to read several of these and no doubt, shake your head in disbelief, do you wonder to yourself, "What can I do about this?" Or do you think,"Where will this all end?" Or do you ponder the question, "Why does Michael not write about sports?

If you're reading this now, believing that I've got an answer to give you to either of those first two questions I'm sorry to disappoint you. I am as baffled as you are. As to the third question... I had to think really hard to remember who played in the Super Bowl THIS year and the only significant event I know of in March is my youngest son's birthday.

Have a great day...

Now, Flip the Coin Over

In the last post, regarding voluntary euthanasia I asked the following questions:

What's the difference between one shot of adrenalin that results in cardiac arrest and forty years of chicken fried steaks that result in cardiac arrest? What's the difference in one lethal dose of poison and a lifetime of smoking cigarettes? What's the difference in a terminally ill person walking off a cliff and a mountain climber who fails to inspect equipment and ends up at the bottom of the cliff? Don't all of these result in death? Don't we know that chicken fried steak, cigarettes and faulty climbing equipment will most certainly kill the body? What about the belief that God gave us life and it's not our right to end that life? Why do we call it "taking a life" when we do it in one shot and we call it "living a life" when we do it over a period of 30 or 40 years?

I expect some dissent. I expect that some of my friends will not agree with me. I expect that most, if not all of that dissent will be based on the "God gives us this life and we don't have the right to interfere with God's plan" argument. I've heard that even if we are incapacitated that we don't know what God has planned for us and we don't know what good work God might accomplish through our incapacity and therefore we should not end the life, no matter how miserable, because God's plans might suffer a setback. Now, for the other side of the argument.

If that is your moral framework then why medicate at all? Why then do surgery to remove the inflamed appendix or the infected tonsils? Why prescribe medication to reduce pain and relieve suffering? Could not the suffering be a "thorn in the flesh" that brings us closer to God? If it's interfering with God's plan to end a life, then is it not interfering with God's plan to extend a life? Isn't it hypocritical to take Tylenol to end your suffering with a headache and then argue that the suffering of a quadriplegic cannot be ended by causing the body to die? Isn't one medical interference with the body the same as another?

As for God's involvement... let me remind you of God's plan for this world. God made the garden. God wanted to walk and talk with us. God wanted to watch us enjoy the earth He created for us. God wanted to be close to us. The world we live in is fallen and broken and God's original desire for His relationship with us changed. Pain and suffering are not key elements of God's original plan.

In our culture, eating a dog is reviled. Something about it just seems wrong... we can't quite put our finger on what it is. We think maybe it's because dogs are smart... but pigs are actually smarter and we have no trouble eating pork. We think maybe it's because dogs are cuter than pigs but really a cow is quite a gentle and beautiful animal and we have no trouble eating beef.

Voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide are sort of like eating dog meat. We're not sure why we have a hard time with it, we just know we do. Logically, voluntary euthanasia makes sense but we still have trouble swallowing. Walk with God. Talk with God. And like many men and women before you, pray that He returns before you have to decide.

The End, Given Away and Taken Away

The plot line of Million Dollar Baby ends in the euthanasia of Maggie, the female boxer played by Hillary Swank. Maggie suffers a broken neck and becomes quadriplegic after leading a life of extreme physicality. The Clint Eastwood character, Frankie is ultimately the one who pulls the plug and injects Maggie with a lethal dose of adrenalin. (Oh, you didn't want to know how it ended? Sorry.) In a related story, Hunter Thompson recently took his life with a handgun in his Colorado home. Apparently he faced declining health and chose to put an end to the pain and the potential loss of vitality. Once again, the issue of euthanasia, voluntary and otherwise, is forced into the public consciousness.

For some reason, we Americans seem stricken by the idea that someone might want to put an end to their human life. We seem unable to grasp the concept that some life is not worth living. (I do not mean children born with disabilities. I mean adults who are capable of making their own decisions.) I've already read denunciation of the movie for the very fact that it didn't portray Maggie overcoming the depression, the frustration and the limitations of quadriplegia and becoming a teacher, a motivational speaker or a business owner. The argument is that quadriplegia is not the end of a rich, meaningful life. I can agree that quadriplegia is not NECESSARILY the end of a rich, meaningful life... but I allow for different responses to that condition.

We know that we feel physical pain according to our individual threshold for pain. We know that we react differently to medications. We know that a certain smell may make one person vomit and another person hardly notices. We know that we are all made individuals. There are very few common truths about the entirity of the human race.

So why would we believe that the "best" response to a physically debilitating injury is the same for everyone? Why would be constrain those who would rather not live in their new, quadriplegic reality? Why would we punish those who enable the choice to leave that body?

(I know where I'm going when my body dies and that certainly has a strong bearing on my current belief that I'd rather not live in that condition. However, I proactively acknowledge that I'm not in that position and therefore may have to change my personal choice at some point in the future.)

What's the difference between one shot of adrenalin that results in cardiac arrest and forty years of chicken fried steaks that result in cardiac arrest? What's the difference in one lethal dose of poison and a lifetime of smoking cigarettes? What's the difference in a terminally ill person walking off a cliff and a mountain climber who fails to inspect equipment and ends up at the bottom of the cliff? Don't all of these result in death? Don't we know that chicken fried steak, cigarettes and faulty climbing equipment will most certainly kill the body? What about the belief that God gave us life and it's not our right to end that life? Why do we call it "taking a life" when we do it in one shot and we call it "living a life" when we do it over a period of 30 or 40 years?

I want to make that decision for myself, if and when the time comes. My wife (God bless her) knows that I have no intention of living inside a hospital, a nursing home or other care facility. I only hope that I have the strength to walk into the desert when that time comes and I don't have to rely on someone else to do what I cannot do for myself.