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July 30, 2005

don's dissent

Tulsa blogger Don Singleton took issue with a couple of points in my Friday post Frist, Do No Harm. First, he disagrees with my statement that IVF involves a lives for money equation:

I agree that life begins at conception, but the problem is not that Frist will support allowing research on the embryos that are about to be destroyed; the problem is that so many embryos were created without the intention of bringing them to term. What they should do is allow these embryos to be used, but require tighter controls over the future creation of excess embryos in future IVF procedures.

Of course I agree it is wrong to create so many embryos which will ultimately be destroyed. But I have to disagree that they should allow these doomed embryos to be used for research. To do so entails treating the embryos as non humans.

We have precident in our legal system for protecting humans who are doomed. For example, suppose I decide to pull a Jack Ruby on a murderer on death row, just one day before his execution was to be carried out. I would be arrested, charged and prosecuted for killing a human who was going to die anyway. Or to use a perhaps more appropos example, suppose I started offing the very aged and infirm in some quick, unexpected and painless way? I would be charged with murder, despite the fact that my victims were close to death.

The point is, either embryos are human lives or they are not. If an embryo is a human being, then it has the right to protection from being killed for any reason, even if it seems expedient. If the harvesting of the stem cells destroys the embryos or even if it provides any incentive for the destruction of the embryos, and if you believe that life begins at conception, then you have to conclude Frist's position is morally wrong.

We enter peril, morally speaking, when we think of people in groups and fail to consider the individual. There is a huge number of embryos destined to be destroyed. But the notion of using "them" for research becomes more palatable when you close your mind to the idea that when a lab assistant punctures an embryo with a needle, he or she is ending one human being's life. If you believe life begins at conception, you have to treat that life as a human life.

Posted by joel at 05:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 29, 2005

frist, do no harm

Frist (fr[i^]st), v. t. [OE. fristen, firsten, to lend, give respite, postpone, AS. firstan to give respite to; akin to first time, G. frist, Icel. frest delay.] To sell upon credit, as goods. [R.] --Crabb.

"I am pro-life," Mr. Frist says in his speech on Thursday, arguing that he can reconcile his support for the science with his own Christian faith. "I believe human life begins at conception...I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported." (NY Times)

When he was nominated as Senate Majority leader, Dr. Bill Frist was hailed, by virtue of his experience as a medical doctor, as a consumate expert who could lead the GOP through the contentious medical conundrums of the twenty-first century. But apparently the question of embryonic stem cell research requires not so much a leading doctor as a average logician.

Frist has departed from Bush's policy which allows federal funding only for pre-existing lines of embryonic stem cells. Frist wants to expand that policy to include the use of frozen, soon-to-be discarded embryos to create new lines of embryonic stem cells.

"An embryo is nascent human life," Mr. Frist says in his speech, adding: "This position is consistent with my faith. But, to me, it isn't just a matter of faith. It's a fact of science." But more than either of these, IVF and federal embryonic stem cell research is about money.

The ethics of IVF (in vitro fertilization) is based on expediency: it does help couples who are having trouble getting pregnant to have children. But it creates many more embryos than the couple will use, mainly because creating embryos one at a time would be prohibitively expensive. If you believe, as Frist claims he does, that human life begins at conception, then IVF involves the hideous equation of lives for money.

Once you accept the morality or at least the expediency of IVF's lives-for-money equation, Frist's frozen embryo exploitation scheme is a relatively small step, involving only piddly issues like privacy and the lack of "strong ethical and scientific oversight." To put it another way, as long as the parents are ok with it, and as long as the doctors and scientists give it the nod, it's ok to take an innocent human life. Frist, you give new play to the phrase "hypocritical oath."

Posted by joel at 10:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 28, 2005

not funny

It's painful to admit it, but when I am busy and distracted, I'm not a very humorous person. That isn't to say I lose my sense of humor (at least I hope not). But when the gears are really turning upstairs, I'm generally not the one thinking up new material worthy of Jerry Seinfield's immediate attention. I'm not funny, and I know it. Ouch.

It reminds me of the line from the movie An American Tail. Fival, the movie's undersized hero with the oversized curiousity, asks the boss of a sweatshop, "but what about my family?"

The boss replies, "You don't need a family, kid. You got a job. Now GET TO WORK!!!"

So what's the job these days? I've shifted abruptly from reading books in my spare time to assembling a PC for my son to use in school next fall. And so I've lapsed into PC Assembling Mode. This means that I think about building computers all the time. Haha, haha. Ha. Funny. What's worse, I think it's fun. My entheusiasm is unmatched, even by my son, and he's pretty darned entheusiastic. It's just hilarious.

But it's going to be so cool! Assembled entirely from scratch, and on the cheap, this puppy-dog-tail of a computer is going to rock, relatively speaking. I'll post a picture when it's done.

<boring>
I bought the microATX case for this computer several years ago. Can't remember if it was eBay or somebody's sale, but I got it for six bucks ($6.00). Such a deal. Only when it arrived did I discover my foolishness: there was no power supply in this case. I then shopped for a microATX powersupply and found they were a little more pricey than regular ATX power supplies, particularly if you didn't want an underpowered one (I definitely didn't want that).

So this little-bitty case languished. But this summer as the school year approached, I became enamoured with the thought of assembling a PC for the young scholar, and my eyes turned again to that little case. Now for the ingredients:

I was going to get a variable rate fan and a nifty glowing LCD displayin' fan controller, but I opted to automate (after all, it's for a 10-year-old), so I got a front panel which just has USB and headphone jack, and I'm putting in the automatic fan. This fan is pretty cool (Hahahahahah!) because it runs slower and quieter if the computer is cool, but when things heat up, it cranks up, providing extra coolness. No fuss, no muss, no chance the scholar will turn the thing off.

Motherboard, CPU, RAM, DVD-ROM are all here and installed; tonight I should get the powersupply and hard-drive, and I'll be ready for a Xandros-fueled test run. Compared to the other computers I've got laying around doing next to nothing, this one should cook.
</boring>

My sister and her husband just moved. This weekend I may go help them get settled in. Then maybe while I'm hanging a picture or two, and pushing furniture around, maybe, just maybe I'll forget to think about computers for a while. Maybe. But seriously, what do you think about getting a cheap MP3 player?

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July 23, 2005

archaeopteryx

First I was a flappy bird, then, briefly, a slithering reptile, and now I'm back to being a flappy bird. Perhaps I am a probationary flappy bird. I'd be ok with that. I could be one of those birds with teeth and a mix of some scales and some feathers. I am a slithery, flappy reptile-bird.

Posted by joel at 11:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 22, 2005

somebody stop me

Smell the baby.
Evangelium Vitae, by Pope John Paul II

I did it again. I cracked yet another book. Starting books is the new speedreading.

Anyway, this book reminds me of A Christian Manifesto in that John Paul II attempts to paint a broader picture of our culture in the modern age, and to detemine the root of the problem. He does this largely in theological terms, although he does discuss government a bit in sections 21, 22.

Quotable quote which stuck out to me:

The values of being are replaced by those of having.

Here the John Paul II was talking about the way that man's refusal to acknowledge God leads him to an existence which is oriented toward gratification, and that in so doing, he becomes detatched from his own life. His ultimate aim is control; every aspect of life under his control, and even the circumstances of his death are, by his right, under his control. It conjured for me a picture of modern man watching himself live his life literally from outside himself, almost as if he were manipulating a doll. He does not feel what he ought to feel, because the only sensations he accepts are pleasurable ones.

Indeed, what JPII says about suffering is reminiscent of Victor Frankle. JPII says:

In such a context suffering, an inescapable burden of human existence but also a factor of possible human personal growth, is "censored," rejected as useless, indeed opposed as an evil, always and in every way to be avoided.

This reminds me of Frankle largely because of the potential meaning it proposes for suffering. I'd round that out with a good Frankle quote except it is stinkin' late and I have to get up in oh-so-few hours. I leave the Frankle quotation as an exercize for the interpid reader/commentor who wishes this task upon him or herself.

Posted by joel at 01:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

name calling

Are we winning the war of words? Both sides of the abortion issue have a vested interest in what labels are most commonly applied to them. Here is a breakdown of the names we use when we talk about this issue online.

First I Googled six relatively common labels to see what terms are being used on the web in general:

Positive LabelsNeutral LabelsNegative Labels
Pro Choice: 1,040,000 Pro Abortion: 299,000Anti-Life*: 29,900
Pro Life: 1,450,000Anti-Abortion: 766,000Anti-Choice*: 118,000

It would appear the anti-abortion side fares well on the web when it comes to positive portrayal. The web obviously prefers the "best possible light" column for both camps, making the pro abortion side's victory in the mudslinging event less significant. There isn't as much mass in the center as I would have expected, but the neutral column tends to favor the pro abortion crowd.

Next I used Google news to take a look at how both sides are being labeled in news stories:

Positive LabelsNeutral LabelsNegative Labels
Pro Choice: 1,810Pro-Abortion: 325Anti-Life*: 7
Pro Life: 1,560Anti-Abortion: 2,870Anti-Choice*: 225

The media is a fascinating departure from the baseline of the web. The media vastly prefers "pro choice" for that camp over any other moniker. For the lifers they've settled solidly on the "anti-abortion" designator. Between that and the few intrepid "anti-choice" articles, the neutral plus negative outnumbers positive portrayals almost two to one.

And finally I took a look at Technorati to see what the bloggosphere's reporting guidelines are:

Positive LabelsNeutral LabelsNegative Labels
Pro Choice: 23,053Pro Abortion: 6,748Anti-Life*: 472
Pro Life: 32,909Anti-Abortion:11,858Anti-Choice*: 2,352

Bloggers seem to roughly reflect the web, which tends to reinforce its status as a societal baseline against which we may juxtapose the media.

* The term "abortion" was added to the search to ensure a count only of blog entries on the topic.

Posted by joel at 01:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 19, 2005

manifesto

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." --Muhammad Ali

"The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight.
--Robert Graves

A Christian Manifesto
A Christian Manifesto by Francis A. Schaeffer

I cannot read just one book at a time. If you'd asked me about my reading habits two years ago, I expect I would have sworn I was a one-book-at-a-time guy, but this is not the case today. I count five in progress, not counting technical books, around a half a dozen of which hover somewhere between reference reading and serious reading.

I will come back to Nouwen, I promise you, I promise me. But on my last trip past my Indiana bookshelf, I pulled Francis Schaeffer's A Christian Manifesto and started reading it for the third time.

Schaeffer draws upon Samuel Rutherford, the author of Lex Rex or The Law and the Prince, which he (Schaeffer) summarizes:

What is the concept in Lex Rex? Very simply: The law is king, and if the king and the government disobey the law they are to be disobeyed. And the law is founded on the Law of God.

Scheaffer's thesis is that only God's law (meaning law based upon the Judeo-Christian scriptures) can be an appropriate basis for human governement. While Rutherford's book shook the foundations of the Divine Right of Kings in Europe in his day (it was outlawed in both England and Scotland), Schaeffer contends that today the userper is secular humanism, meaning a philosphy which holds that the universe is godless, and formed purely by chance.

Crackpot or clear-eyed visionary? The floor is open for comments.

46923: A Christian Manifesto: 25th Anniversary Edition A Christian Manifesto: 25th Anniversary Edition
By Francis A. Schaeffer / Crossway Books & Bibles

Culture's pressing issues have not changed in the 25 years since apologist Schaeffer's original call for Christians to return to biblical truth. Showing why morality and freedom have crumbled in our society, this modern-day prophet calls for re-establishing America's Judeo-Christian foundation in order to change the course of history. Provocative as ever! 157 pages, softcover from Crossway Books.

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July 15, 2005

chez aviary

I'm all a twitter to report: I am a Flappy Bird in the Truth Laid Bear Blogosphere Ecosystem! Wednesday night when I first signed up and installed the javascript badge (down on the right-hand side), I was an insignificant microbe. But now that TTLB has scanned chez moi, I am delighted to have hurtled right over the heads of Slithering Reptiles, Crawly Amphibians, Flippery Fish, Slimy Molluscs and other things. I flap! I fly! I will soar above my problems...

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July 14, 2005

nouwen knows my name

I heard a song on the radio today whose repeating refrain was, "All I can do is be myself." And I thought of Polonius: "To thine own self be true." Indeed I've heard one variant or another of this advice many, many times in my life. "Don't try to be something you're not," we say. It is widely and profoundly felt, in our culture, that it is a virtue to be who we are, and to avoid artifice.

I heard another song today, which said, "I won't tell 'em your name." I thought about the vulnerability of having one's name known. It came to me that the intrinsic individuality of a name simultaneously acknowledges the presence of a community. I would not need a name if there were no others. I have a name to distinguish me as unique among those who are like me.

If there is a name, an identity, a self to which we must be true, which is intrinsic and stable enough to span our entire lives, then who gives us such a name?

I hear at my center words that say: "I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse...yes, even your child...wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one." --Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

These words Nouwen wrote as from God, who, in John the Revelator's vision said, "To him who overcomes...I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." [Revelation 2:17] This tells us there is a name intended for the community of two which exists between each individual and God himself. God has a name for each one of us which he uses to distinguish each one of us as unique among the vast sea of others who are like us.

I believe the profound longing we feel to be "true to one's self" is an old, almost-but-not-quite vestigial longing to be true to the name God has given to each of us.

19864: Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
By Henri Nouwen / Crossroad Publishing Co.

(PUBCrossroad)Written in response to a friend who wanted spirituality explained to secular people, Nouwen follows the pattern of communion: "Taken," "Blessed," "Broken," and "Given" to spell out God's love. From one of the most popular modern spiritual writers, widely admired for his authenticity. 160 pages, softcover.

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July 13, 2005

pitchers of coffee

I haven't forgotten my promise to take pictures of everything. I actually have a huge backlog of pictures I've taken, but I am behind in blogging them. In the meantime, have a cup of coffee while you wait.

Posted by joel at 01:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

a gentle voice

Life of the beloved
Life of the Beloved, by Henri J.M. Nouwen

I am reading Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Henri J.M. Nouwen. My father loaned it to me last Saturday. I've only read the prologue and the first chapter, but I'm finding it to be evocative and comforting. For instance:

Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests." It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: "You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody --unless you can demostrate the opposite." [That] is the trap of self-rejection.
That soft, gentle voice that calls me the Beloved has come to me in countless ways. My parents, friends, teachers, students, and the many strangers who crossed my path have all sounded that voice in different tones. I have been cared for by many people with much tenderness and gentleness. I have been taught and instructed with much patience and perseverence. I have been encouraged to keep going when I was ready to give up and was stimulated to try again when I failed. I have been rewarded and praised for success...but, somehow, all of these signs of love were not sufficient to convince me that I was the Beloved. Beneath all my seemingly strong self-confidence there remained the question: "If all those who shower me with so much attention could see me and know me in my innermost self, would they still love me?" That agonizing question, rooted in my inner shadow, kept persecuting me and made me run away from the very place where that quiet voice calling me the Beloved could be heard.

19864: Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World
By Henri Nouwen / Crossroad Publishing Co.

(PUBCrossroad)Written in response to a friend who wanted spirituality explained to secular people, Nouwen follows the pattern of communion: "Taken," "Blessed," "Broken," and "Given" to spell out God's love. From one of the most popular modern spiritual writers, widely admired for his authenticity. 160 pages, softcover.

Posted by joel at 01:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 12, 2005

garden variety

Wasn't it always our mothers who said, "If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all?" So it is fitting that Dawn's mom has chided me for not blogging something nice about New Jersey. I admit my one entry about the recent visit my son and I paid to the Garden State dwelt mostly upon my intractable argument with the Turnpike, and my furious and misguided wanderings along highway 9. When I finally calmed from that incident, I extolled Panera, a national chain, and their provision of access to the World wide Web. On long consideration, I admit it seems I wrote about anything but New Jersey.

New Jersians are not remarkable for having a chip on their shoulder for their home state's reputation. I've seen it before from many states which, for one reason or another, got a bad rap they didn't deserve. So Wisconsans and Michiganders talk about their lakes, and North Carolinians talk about their booming economy and lovely mountains. Utes point out their trails and parks and ski resorts vie with Colorado's, if only the tourists would just drive on through to their pleasant, if salty valley.

Still, I think it must be particularly hard for New Jersians, for they have a complex identity, and their state sits so close to other metropolitan lights: flanked by New York City in the north, and by Washington D.C. in the south. They are the most densely populated state, with 8.4 million residents on 7,419 square miles square miles of land; the forty-seventh largest state with the 9th largest population. And in the midst of this cosmopolitan mass of New Jersians, there is still room for beautiful parks, miles of sandy beaches, and hectares of beautiful, rolling farmland.

I love the town of Chester, where we strolled down a main street lined with antique and crafts shops, and found, to our surprise and delight, a restaurant which sells bubble tea. Further down the street was an ice cream store straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, complete with children sitting on the bench out front, absorbed in the evolving challenge of a cone perennially about to drip.

In Morristown there is an old farm-turned-museum that is still maintained the old way by volunteers who wear clothing from the late 19th century. We watched them milk a cow, the mother of a newborn calf, as the cat strolled by in manufactured nonchalance, hoping for a bit of cream. And just 10 minutes away is an enviable array of restaurants; Indian, Japanese and Korean cuisine as well as the ubiquitous Italians.

Two and a half hours to the south are the charms of the sea side resorts of Cape May. There are many old and lovingly restored Bed and Breakfast establishments lining the tree-shaded craze of pedestrian crowded avenues. There is a relaxed, small-town resort feeling there. The beaches are well maintained and roomy: not nearly so crowded as one would expect in early July.

To the north-east along the coast one encounters the family-vacation-minded Wildwood, whose sand-dusted streets are hemmed in by motels revelling in the upbeat modern architecture of the 1950's. Even the new places still under construction fondly reached backwards to the boomers' generation. There is a boardwalk which stretches on for miles, full of gaudy attractions, from greasy spoon, coffee 'n hash brown diners, to roller coasters, to street musicians, to a beach-side chapel which has served up fire and brimstone gospel preaching since the 1940's. Funnel cakes, ice cream, laser tag, novelty T-shirts and fresh peanut-butter fudge crowd the senses and reach for tourists' wallets.

The people of New Jersey are diverse. They have tough-talking Italians, fire-fighter types who haunt the pubs of Hoboken and argue loudly about how things "ain't like they used to be when Frank was around." There are brilliant lights, like the tall, rotund black man who took our tickets at the movie theatre in Morristown. He sweated profusely, but worked very hard, for each ticket he took had to be ripped with great ceremony, complete with flourishes and sound effects. All the children smiled when he handed back their ticket stubs, and I noticed he had better, more interesting protocols for pretty women.

And I cannot forget the Korean woman with her table of novelty toys setup at an AME church bazaar. She offered my son a stick of gum, and when he reached to accept it, he found the gum was loaded; he jerked back his shocked fingers, and the lady threw back her head and laughed. Needless to say, my son kept his money. Then it was my turn to be shocked, for in the midst of her African-American friends and neighbors, she had on proud display a large enamel Confederate flag belt-buckle.

Only in America. Only in New Jersey.

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July 11, 2005

out of the silent continent

Reuters reports the EU is threatening eleven nations with legal action if they do not comply with EU rules concerning noise in urban areas. States are required to draw maps which show noise levels from planes, trains, automobiles and heavy machinery. And then they have to formulate a plan for making everything quieter.

Well, for starters they could stop holding G8 summits there.

Read the whole story here.

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the love life of joel hoagland (page 128)

"Joel, I think we should break up."

I looked at my dearest friend, and tried to fathom what she meant. "Break what up?"

But she didn't know, any more than I did. She talked for a while about what other people think, and very little about us. And I listened to her heart while she spoke, and her heart said I am afraid. You don't know what it's like to be afraid.

And then came the moment, as we walked along beside the water, when there was nothing more I could say. After an awkward pause, she turned and walked another direction, and I walked on in numbness and confusion. And that is how I came into the second grade with no friends.

Pamela had been my only classmate in kindergarten and the first grade. Both our parents taught in the tiny private school which we attended, and so even as kindergarteners, we stayed at school the whole day until well after the other students had left. After our schoolwork was done (very often by midmorning) we would play all day long.

I suppose the older students were jealous, though I couldn't sympathize with such an emotion myself today; children are meant to be happy, and anyone who resents their happiness is still a child himself. But it was reported to my father that I had kissed Pamela, and on the mouth, no less. If I did, I dearly wish I could remember it. But I have no recollection of any such thing ever happening. In any case, I was punished, but before my father punished me, he talked to me about girls. He told me that girls were to be protected and honored. And he recited a nursery rhyme to me: "Georgie, porgie, pudding pie, kissed the girls and made them cry."

I don't remember if I ever made Pamela cry, but I do remember that she seemed to hate me, right up to the eight grade, the last year we attended the same school. She became firmly attached to Cheryl, a girl who first appeared on the scene in second grade, and who could beat up two boys her age at the same time. Pamela would sit next to Cheryl in our eighth grade Greek class, and ridicule me with the vitriol that none of my other classmates ever showed. And Cheryl would laugh.

It hurts to be left behind on the shore of Mona Lake, to be cast aside as a social liability by a pretty girl afraid I could not help her in the pecking order of the second grade. Such pain is a cruel headmaster teaching us to fear. But there is a truth bigger than all the heartache in the world: "Perfect love casts out fear." [1 John 4:18] I do know what it's like to be afraid. But I also know what it's like to fly heedless of the fear into the teeth of the storm; for to love at the risk of pain is the only love worthy of the name. I hope, wherever she is, that Pamela is not afraid.

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July 10, 2005

two soldiers

Major Paine can be very serious.
Major Paine takes the screen by storm in "Two Soldiers," the latest short film from Chez Joel Films and K_sra Productions.

ksrasra and I began a short film project yesterday (3:00pm Saturday, July 9th, 2005) and finished just moments ago (8:15am, Sunday, July 10th, 2005). I hope you enjoy the film as much as we enjoyed making it.

To see the film, click here (9.2Mb, requires Windows Media Player).

Posted by joel at 08:40 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 08, 2005

war with the world

I watched War of the Worlds with Chopper, my brother-in-law this afternoon. Afterwards we repaired to a nearby pub for a little repast. Our conversation meandered from somebody's simplistic misinterpretation of quantum physics into a discussion of free will vis a vis man's ability, through self analysis, to make choices which cause him to change.

I asked if, at the point of change, a person's own perception of himself was relevant. After all, if he were on the cusp of a change, he cannot look at the old version and the new version of himself simultaneously. The moment itself must surely be one of essential un-self-consciousness. Those are the moments when we cannot watch ourselves, but instead must simply be.

But Chopper was angling at something a little different, something a little more practical than the theoretical space between the frames, the space between universes, so to speak. Can a man, by conscious observation of his own behavior patterns, make choices such that he gradually becomes a different person?

In this life we move through a virtual soup of choices. The vastly overwhelming majority of choices are insignificant, at least to all appearances. When we set down the salt shaker after dashing salt onto our food, we don't obsess about which side of the plate to set the shaker on, or whether the salt shaker ought to be rotated a few degrees one way or another. We could focus on such things, but we don't.

So much of life is accomplished on autopilot. We have habits which run the show for the most part, and we preside over our set of habits, and interpose our will only when significant matters come up; e.g. I usually drive down fourth street, but my friend needs a ride to work, so today I shall choose to drive down fifth street instead.

And we even have a choice about how often we want to make choices. We opt for stretches of choiceless time; the movie Chopper and I had watched is an example of opting for a two hour stretch of not making choices. But we cold have easily turned the movie watching into a choice-ful experience. For instance, suppose we had decided we would watch roughly half the movie. Once roughly half the movie was over, we'd have started glancing at our watches, and each time we glanced at our watches we'd have made a choice: leave or watch for a few more minutes?

We migrated to the Starbucks nearby to continue the discussion, and on the way, I thought of the horrible events this morning in London. And I realized that it often happens that the flow of current events overtake and dominate our conversations to the point that everything we think of to say is a reaction to the world. It becomes the will of the world vs. our own choice. Never mind if our reactions to the world are vehement and clear-spoken. The world started the conversation, and while we should never tune it out completely, we should not let it be our only conversation either.

Chopper's wife, my sister, called my cell phone to say that Chopper must come home but that I may certainly come over too. But their home is on the opposite side of town, and I have alot of thinking to do, so I chose to decline the invitation. As we walked to our cars, I spoke about the two poles of existence which seem the most unproductive: at the one extreme there is escapism, wherein the will is submerged by distractions like television, movies, games, books and other things. The other pole is frenetic overchoosing, the worried state in which all choices seem equally important, and equally opaque.

And Chopper said, "It's somewhere in the middle." He had been reading, he explained, that the predictability of a pattern grows less as the complexity of the information grows greater. But in very simple patterns, prediction is trivial. "If I were to repeat the same word to you over and over," he said, "it would be very easy for you to predict what I was about to say next." At the other extreme is complete randomness, which is utterly unpredictable.

This universe, and we ourselves are neither completely random, nor are we trivially simple. We and our world are somewhere between the two. And as I contemplated this on my drive home, a Psalm came into my head: "Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies." Suddenly the Psalm became a cryptogram unravelling. A table is simple, predictable, safe. Enemies are complex, volitile, dangerous and difficult to predict. God, in preparing an ordered space for us in the midst of chaos, has deftly wrapped these two diametric forces into a single, paradoxical whole: a universe which is not so simple that we do not have room to make choices, nor so complex that we cannot observe it and make some predictions. He provided paths in which we might cross the blind spots of self change, but at the same time made a world in which we might actually observe ourselves and others in order to make informed choices.

If even the very chaos of our world serves His purpose, is it any wonder that Paul wrote to the saints in Rome, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Posted by joel at 12:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 07, 2005

filled with longing

Here is an awesome piece of writing. Dawn has described, in essential detail, the moments of longing which seem to characterize the finest moments of our lives. We all have these moments at some point, I'm sure of it. It's just that they happen at different times, places and contexts for each of us. Some feel it in the loneliness of a train whistle, others at the sound of bagpipes, others in the last days of summer at youth camp, when all the campers and staff have gone home. There are certain kinds of sadness which are better than any amount of laughter.

I believe this is because those moments for which we are filled with nostalgia are not truly gone. We think of ourselves as a simple point upon the line of progressing time, when actually we may be more like a cup into which the strand of time is being dropped. We observe from the rim of the cup, and are sorry when certain moments have dropped out of view, but in truth, they have only entered the cup, and are with us still. Someday, when we are more like what we were always meant to be, those collected moments in the cup may be even more fully ours than they ever were, even at the moment when we first experienced them. What we feel as longing now, may, in the long run, be more truly interpreted as thankfulness. That's what I think, anyway.

Posted by joel at 03:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 03, 2005

anderson council


Jersey band Anderson Council rocks out the backyard venue in East Brunswick.

It's a great day to be in New Jersey. I blog from the backyard of Rob Farrell, bassist for The Anderson Council, where the band is blasting the old neighborhood with their beer-and-barbieque-softened retro sound. Not four feet away from me sits the Nightfly, who showed up late, but plenty early for the music. He brought a dessert called "Happy Mouth," which, considering the laughs it has provided us, is as good as the label advertises.


Lead singer Peter Horvath adjusts his spectacles for the crowd.

Suddenly, with three of my favorite bloggers sitting here, It occurred to me that I could blog this backyard concert in progress. I stepped out to the car, retrieved my laptop, and dispatched newshound Dawn Eden, cameraphone in hand, to photo-document the good Council in action.


Is it the music? Or is it "Happy Mouth?"

If you're reading this on Sunday afternoon, be jealous. I'm here with Dawn and the Nightfly and the Anderson Council. As Peter Horvath (lead singer and guitarist) says, "Have fun and be drunk at work." This blogging from the backyard is nice work when you can get it.


Happy meal: burger and "Happy Mouth."

Posted by joel at 04:40 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

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