When Grace Fails
June 11, 2008 | Filed Under Small Talk | Leave a Comment
Grace is the outward manifestation of a belief that people are better than their circumstances and mistakes.
For most of my life I’ve been a patient, caring and somewhat passive person. Structurally, these three qualities have been benefitial in applying and receiving grace.
To be gracious, one must be willing to take risks. And paramount among those risks is the risk that grace will be abused.
I’ve been trampled on a few times in my life. And, I’ve trampled on others.
Such is life. To create the space in which human beings thrive, grace must be applied. But the context in which grace is applied is a context in which there is the very real chance that the grace is 1) not recognized, 2) taken for granted via entitlement or 3) explicitly abused.
So how do we face the fact that grace fails in this world? What do we do about it? Do we harden up; become stone hearted? Do we create structural boundaries to protect us from the failure of grace? Or do we keep on taking risks in the unbelievable belief that at the end of the day, grace is our best hope?
No Greater Feeling for Homo Sapien
April 28, 2008 | Filed Under Small Talk | Leave a Comment
A) knowing what has to be done
B) knowing how to do it
C) getting it done, well.
Whatever it is, I firmly believe that there is no greater feeling for members of Homo Sapien than to experience the feelings associated with the conjunction of A, B and C. If you’re missing C) then you feel incomplete. If you are missing B) then you feel out of control. If you are missing A) but somehow get C) then you got lucky. But not only lucky. You also lost the context which informs and magnifies the experience of C)
Whether it’s voting as a citizen in a democracy, working for overthrow in a tyranny, mowing the lawn, protesting an unjust war, putting together a lego set, helping a friend in desperate need, developing an argument, holding an employee accountable, fixing a clogged drain, taking care of a brand new baby, buying a gift for your wife, building a door frame in the basement or power-washing the vinyl siding… there’s no greater feeling.
I’m not saying that these things are necessarily fun. But there’s an unparalleled feeling that I experience when I look reality in the face, see what needs to change, do the hard work to make change, and ultimately complete the task.
I imagine it’s a bit like how God felt when he said “It’s good” more than a few times as he created the world.
10 Reasons I’m Thankful In 2007
November 25, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk | 2 Comments
Compared to the vast majority of people to have lived on Earth, I live like a king. While I don’t deserve it, my life is spectacular. It’s nice to have a holiday like Thanksgiving to remind me of all the things I take for granted on a daily basis.
1. I’m thankful not only for the gift of forgiveness but also the gift of forgiving.
2. How can you not be thankful when you’ve got friends like these.
3. I’m thankful that there are still some people who are more curious than political.
4. I’m thankful for older people who are full of grace and provide a model of what it is to be truly human.
5. I’m thankful for my dog Lilly and two cats Cordouroy and Abby. They give me daily joy simply by being themselves.
6. I’m thankful for real ideals - ideals that are really worth pursuing, even when reality struggles to conform.
7. I’m thankful for becoming…for the art of progress, growth and development.
8. I’m thankful for the way things are. All our political posturing, false beliefs and mumbojumbo philosophy can’t change those facts.
9. I’m thankful for the beauty of relationships. They are fundamental. Absolutely fundamental. The most real, real. Brute, basic, bedrock.
10. In that light, I’m especially thankful for my wife, who has shown me the depths, textures and rich potential of relationship. And soon, we shall start a new relationship;-)
I take it as self-evident that there is a receiver of thanks implied in all of these propositions;-)
Is the Trade Deficit an Indirect Result of Sex Addiction?
November 20, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk | Leave a Comment
Wouldn’t surprise me!  Here’s the idea
Why is there a $700 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy things they can’t afford. Why do they want to buy things they can’t afford? To pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to appear richer than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want higher social status? So they will have better access to the opposite sex.
From Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics
Schooling, Anxiety and Children
October 30, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk | 1 Comment
Nothing rings truer than words that expound on a real life experience:
“…the anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don’t know.”
-John Holt
Sherburne, NY and Rogers Park
August 27, 2007 | Filed Under Micah, Small Talk | Leave a Comment
This week I visited Sherburne, NY for the first time, I think, in over eight years. The last time I was in Sherburne was for my brother’s graduation from high school.
I spent my freshman, sophomore and junior years in Sherburne, NY and it holds a special place in my heart.
Though I’m out of touch with virtually everyone from my high school years, I still think fondly of the place (even the dog food smell, haha) and it’s been great to be back and soak up all the old memories.
Here are some pictures from Rogers Park, a great game conservation park right smack dab in the heart of Sherburne, NY.
Looking to Nature for Guidance
August 19, 2007 | Filed Under Micah, Small Talk | Leave a Comment
A lot of people don’t realize this, and I didn’t until recently, but Ancient wisdom literature (both biblical and non-biblical) agrees upon at least one fundamental fact: that humans can learn a lot about life and happiness by looking at Nature: the way things are and the way things happen.
It also occurred to me recently that modern Western humans have largely lost touch with the concept of there being a “blueprint” for living a good life. In today’s West, the goal is to define what’s best for oneself. This often turns out to be equivalent to “whatever the hell I feel like doing” - or at least to “whatever feels good without harming others.”
That sums up, to a large degree, how I’ve lived my life so far. But the ancient philosophers and writers of wisdom knew something that we’ve forgotten. That things, including humans, have natures to be discovered. Sure, there is certainly a degree of variability and self-definition that Nature allows for. But by and large, the vast number of facts are determined facts. The healthy soul seeks to know these facts, learn from these facts and act based on these facts. Wherever these facts are clearly problematic (disease, poverty and sickness), one can find joy from fighting against these facts. Wherever these facts are non-problematic, one can find joy by embracing and acknowledging these facts with one’s life.
I wrote a paper recently that investigated the various ways that biblical wisdom literature admonishes the reader to look at natural kinds, and to learn from them. The main point, in my view? That acting according to one’s nature is fundamental to peace, Joy and happiness. As one obvious example, it is part of the nature of human beings to share stories. That’s one of the reasons movies make so many people happy. Movies (and novels before them) help us realize aspects of our human nature.
It’s my view that it is also part of the nature of human beings to praise God; to have an attitude of thankfulness and admiration. I know that I’ve gone between extremes. I’ve been very angry at God…even very recently. I’ve also been inclined to disbelieve in God from time to time. But if I’m truthful with myself, I have to acknowledge that the most fulfilling, rewarding and “whole” times of my life have been when I’ve maintained a persistent attitude of thankfulness.
What constitutes thankfulness? Being Fully Human. That’s it. Seems simple, but if, by Being Fully Human, I include the property of “being thankful to God” - it turns out that many of us fail to be fully human on a daily basis.
Let me end this post by drawing your attention to this canticle (a song). The idea here is that we praise God by being the things we were created to be. That’s quite comforting to me. It makes me realize that one of the goals of my life is to discover, to the best of my abilities, the Nature of Human and to live according to that nature:
Life’s Little Joys
August 3, 2007 | Filed Under Micah, Small Talk | 2 Comments
Yesterday I bought a video game, Super Mario Strikers for the Wii.
Today, my wife and I get to meet our friends’ new baby boy. A very special baby boy, in fact.
Tomorrow, I might get to test drive a Mustang, look at house plans at 84 Lumber, and buy a bike for my wife so we can start bike riding along the Delaware Canal path.
Best of all, Miss Lillers is pretty much back to normal after two hard days of work at Four Paws 
Fallacies of Eastern Thought
July 23, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk | 1 Comment
I’ve long been enamored with Eastern Thought. I know that there are many varieties of Eastern philosophies and ways of life, so I apologize from the very beginning for lumping them into a single category. But communication requires simplification.
The most appealing aspect of Eastern Thought, to me, has been the idea that almost all negative emotion is derived from the illusion that the individual has more control over his or her circumstance than he or she really does. In other words, “if only I had done X” or “I can’t believe she did Y” - these thoughts can often make a person angry, bitter, etc. And the fact is that one cannot change what happened in the past. Nor does one have much if any control over the decisions of others.
The truth of the matter is that often times we do self-indulge in counterfactual emotions for far too long, and the only effect that they have is usually self-destructive (this is one of the reasons that forgiveness is so powerful).
So Eastern Thought, on the whole, I think, has much wisdom to offer, especially in regards to seeking peace in one’s life. But I also think that it is fundamentally flawed, keeps people from living full human lives, and brings people who take it far enough to disregard the intrinsic value of interpersonal relations. In other words, I think Eastern Thought is not flawed just for the realist, but for anyone who thinks that persons and individuals are fundamental to the Universe, as opposed to illusory.
Talk to anyone who’s enamored with Eastern Thought and the first thing they will probably say to you to convince you of the truth of their views goes something like this: “Take a deep breath. Now breathe out. Notice that you and the Universe are one. That there is no fundamental boundary between you and the universe. As you breathe in, you breathe in the Universe, you are the Universe and the Universe is you.” The key idea is that the perceived separation between you and the Universe as well as you and Others, is an illusion. To achieve enlightenment and wisdom, one really spends the rest of one’s life overcoming this illusion and recognizing the true nature of the Universe.
In fact, a fundamental piece of knowledge in Eastern traditions is to recognize that the processes going on inside your body are exemplary of the processes going on in the Universe. That you become one with the Universe by knowing it through your own body.
What I’m offering here is not an argument, but a reason for rejecting the full blown doctrines of Eastern Thought while appreciating the truths that it speaks of.
The gist of my reason is this: that individuals are fundamental, basic constructs of reality, that living a full, fulfilling life requires an appreciation of relations between individuals, respect and love for the other, and that the thought experiments designed to convince you otherwise are logically flawed.
It is my view that a rejection of the fundamental existence of individuals in one’s ontology is, at its core, selfish and individualistic. Now, those attributes aren’t seen as negative attributes to everyone. If you see selfishness and individualism as positive attributes, then this article is not meant to convince you.
But what I do want to suggest is that Eastern Philosophies ultimately deny the individual, and in doing so deny the relata of the relations between individuals.
Ok, so why does this matter? Well, it matters because in most of the Eastern systems that I’ve explored, the general tendency is to focus on the well-being of one’s own body, of one’s own thoughts, of one’s self. The other tendency is to reject the existence of moral consequences, to detach one self and one’s actions from considerations of their consequences, and from their implications.
It is my view that while Eastern thought is certainly capable of producing a sense of peace and serenity in one’s being, and to improve the well-being of the individual in certain respects (i.e. low stress, low anxiety, quiet mind, etc). Eastern thought can be fundamentally destructive to relationships and to the full range of human living. In other words, I believe that when taken seriously, Eastern thought leads to a rejection of the highest goods that so many people naturally value in life.
It might be argued that maybe these “highest goods” aren’t really good at all. That enlightenment will show one that the joy of family, of sport, of trust, of long term committment, of interpersonal relations are illusory. My response to this suggestive line of thought is simply that the burden of proof is on the person who has already assented to Eastern Thought to convince the rest of us. And further, it is my view that the person who has already assented to Eastern Thought must first convince the rest of us that the notion of the individual is illusory.
So basically Eastern Thought moves from gaining your assent that the notion of the individual is illusory, to the view that many of the things that the ordinary man values are built upon this illusion. Dedication to moral goods is one example. The value of commitment, a relational notion that requires individuals as relata, is undermined. The value of family and friends, again, which require individuals as relata, is undermined.
What you are left with is a selfish individual who identifies himself with the Universe and proceeds to act from a position of serene drifting between states, flutterings of fascination and utter disregard for the Other.
Reason and Reasons
July 10, 2007 | Filed Under Small Talk | Leave a Comment
I like thinking about how language affects the way we think.
I was in the shower this morning, where I do pretty much all my thinking for the day, and it occurred to me that some reasons are not based in reason. Ok, so what’s the big deal?
Well, most people will agree that when you think deeply enough about the world, things don’t just happen, they happen because of something else that happened. Beliefs are one such thing that we think come into existence because of something else (the reason). In other words, you believe what you believe not *just* because you believe it, but because something happened to bring you to that belief.
Most of the beliefs that you have now, you did not have when you were born. So at some point in time, you acquired most of the beliefs that you have. But why?
Well, for reasons. Ah, but not all reasons are based in reason! In other words, many people have beliefs for reasons that we might describe as “just intuition” or “it’s obvious” or “that’s the way I see the world” or “that’s how I experienced it” - many of the reasons for our beliefs are attitudinal - based in feeling or brute preference.
Ok. Again…so what.
Well, many people, rightly, think that beliefs should be had for reasons. But, for whatever reason, the same people often make the mistake of thinking that such reasons should all be based in reason. In other words, many thoughtful people take the absurd view that the only good reason is a reason based in reason. But that would make most of our beliefs bad beliefs.
Does this mean that I’m anti-reason? Absolutely not. What it does mean is that I’m not so naive as to expect that all my beliefs be based in reason, and I’m also very comfortable holding beliefs that “seem” right even if I can’t demonstrate (using reason) the reason for the belief.
“So you’re one of those people who blindly believes in God, eh?” - No, I didn’t say that. But I do think that one can have reasons for believing in God which are not based in reason (though I suspect there are well-formed reasons that are based in reason too).