Building stronger communities

Over the past year I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about community -- exploring a longing for a deeper connection to place, nature, and neighbors.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about our economy. It seems to me that low interest has exacerbated our societal infatuation with instant gratification and our aversion to saving and building wealth. But it is not enough to identify our addiction to credit both corporately and personally, the true challenge with any addiction is breaking it.

Thinking about getting out of debt, I was initially overwhelmed by the thought of paying off our $190,000 mortgage. My wife and I can afford the monthly payments and the mortgage has a fixed rate but even paying over the monthly minimum leaves us in debt for years to come. Then I thought, if I could get $1,000 from 190 people I could pay off this mortgage. That doesn’t seem so impossible. More importantly in lead to thinking about Amish barn building and the power of a community to do what an individual cannot.

Loving our neighbors by freeing them from debt

So here is the idea. What if a group of people pooled their resources to eliminate debt and enable people to own their homes? I think this would build stronger communities by providing a mechanism for us to give and receive from our neighbors, keeping wealth local, and by encouraging people to commit to staying in the community. Here is the plan.

Form a community development association that would collect $1,000/yr dues. If we had 100 people in the association this would raise $100,000 capital. This money would be for the sole purpose of paying off mortgages starting with the CDA member who has the lowest remaining mortgage balance. If that person owed say $80,000 the CDA would give them a grant for that amount on two conditions. 1) They continue to make their mortgage payments for 1 more year but the money goes back to the CDA. 2) If they sell their house within 10 years of receiving a grant they must return 50% of the grant money to the CDA.

One plan for the incoming “mortgage payment” money and any grant refunds would be for the CDA to invest them in a local bank. The interest from this money would form an important secondary source of revenue that could cover administrative cost (so dues go 100% towards paying mortgages) and eventually augment the power of the CDA to give grants.

While all of this is up for grabs, here is how I would answer some anticipated questions.

Q. Why pay off the lowest mortgage balance since those people are paying less interest?
A. I think it is important that the CDA rewards people who a) have worked hard to lower their mortgage balance and b) buy modestly priced houses. Also it is the in the interest of the CDA to pay of multiple mortgages per year b/c that increases income for the following year from substitute mortgage payments. It also increases the number of people we can help.

Q. If the CDA pays off one mortgage per year and there are 100 members how will you ever pay off everyone’s mortgage?
A. We will not. Giving to the CDA is not an investment in the sense that you put money in and then eventually get money back out. Instead it is an investment into the lives of our neighbors helping free them from debt. It is also a tangible investment in a place. By strengthening the financial position of our neighbors and giving them an incentive to stay we can together build the churches, schools, and community organizations that add to a neighborhood’s quality of life. I also hope that we can correct an over emphasis on individualism that ultimately leads to isolation and erodes community. If we can move beyond thinking only of our financial self interest, I think investing in our neighborhood is a good investment.

Q. I can barely make my mortgage payments and can’t afford CDA membership. As a needy member of this community why should I be excluded from a CDA grant?
A. I don’t envision this as a charity in the traditional sense of helping those who can’t help themselves. Obviously such charities are needed and hopefully some of the wealth created for the community by paying off home loans will be directed to those charities. It is also not my intention that people stop giving to churches or other charities because of giving to the CDA. I realize that this program could be seen as the rich helping the rich (especially in global terms) and think the CDA must work hard to promote other forms of charitable investment in the local community and toward global needs. Ultimately I believe a community of property owners can do more than a community of debtors to promote social justice. In an economic meltdown the most vulnerable (the poor) are likely to get hurt the worst.

Q. What form of governance would the CDA have?
A. I don’t have a full answer to this question yet and would love feedback but ultimately what I’m calling a CDA is similar to a credit union and I think we could look to credit unions to provide examples of governance structures.

I posted some additional thoughts on in a facebook note.

Future me, meet Past me

So, we all procrastinate at times. We also work dilligently at times. Often, there is a sense of guilt that goes along with working or resting that is completely linked to the timeliness of when we do so. Instead of feeling guilty about procrastinating, let me propose the following outlook:

At any given instant there are 3 of me. There is past me, present me, and future me. Unfortunately, only present me can choose to effect the world... or maybe not. I like to think of doing favors for the other me's.

Present me is a little tired today, so he is going to let future me do present me a favor by doing some extra work tomorrow. On the other hand past me did a lot of work last week so that present me would be able to take some time to relax this weekend. So, a heartfelt present me thanks past me and future me for being so considerate.

Now, I'm a hard working person, so an awful lot of what I do goes to benefit future me. But present me needs to be careful here. Because any .com entrepreneur from 1999 can tell you, future me doesn't always benefit from present me's sacrifices. So, I think its important to enjoy the current moment at least as much as the future moment coming down the line.

Another important point is that present and future me need to take satisfaction from past me's highlight reel. Present me tends to be constantly looking for an entertaining time. But, maybe it makes sense to just chill and let past me have all the fun while present me has some downtime.

Tax Write Off

So I don't get it. Tax write off. Ok, Actually, I do get it. So, lets have a little tax 101. Class is in session:

Its like this: A company sells a product. They get revenue. They then spend some money to make more money. The difference between the 2, thats profit, and its what gets taxed. So, everything... Everything.... EVERYTHING is a write off, because its a business expense. Very few things *aren't* business expenses. Basically, you have to work pretty hard at spending company money on personal stuff for it not to be a write off. And you know what, in those cases, its called.... Embezzlement. So, its not really about taxes at all, its about being ethical with money that is only *partly* yours because most business owners answer to either stockholders, or a board, or your customers, or at the least, they you answer to future you(who by the way, we all owe something to... hmmm there's another blog post right there, )

What is tricky is that corporations get taxed twice in a way: The corp gets taxed on its profit. And then the money that gets distributed to employees gets taxed as well. So, if your a smart corporation, you jiggle things a little to minimize the corp's profit and pass it on to employees as salary, everybody's happy. Or, you can be a little bit more elitist. You can have the company make a big profit, the company gets taxed, but the stock price goes up, and the stockholders and senior management sell their stock and then pay only the capital gains tax (which is lower than personal income tax) . Aha! you say, the capital gains tax, now wasn't that lowered by Bush and Cronie Co. Yes! It was the one smart thing he did in office. Because when you sell $30 Million in stock, you don't put it in the bank to earn 2% interest. You put it back in the stock market, so the capital gains tax decrease actually encourages strong investing. Which, is probably more important to the economy than oil prices, unemployment, and interest rates combined.

We all together now? Ok, so here is the lesson: the "tax write off" as most people use the term is an entity that doesn't exist. Its based on the belief that corporations and businessmen get away with breaking the rules because the rules are written for them. This of course, is entirely incorrect. Corporations and businessmen get away with breaking the rules because they have enough money to convince the right people that the rules don't apply to them. Which, in retrospect is not really much of a distinction.


Ok, I was wrong. This post was a waste of time. I think I'll just write it off.

Childlike Faith

Infants are cute. Many people can't resist touching them, holding them, and cooing at them. Their accomplishments are widely celebrated (frequently on Blogger); accomplishments such as rolling over, saying simple words, and waving. Pretty hard for a 35 year old to compete with. No one pays much attention to our common motor and verbal abilities.

That is how it should be and it would indicate some sad tragedy if it were any different. After all we've realized that saying, "daddy" is nothing compared to being one, or loving one, or mourning one. Life as a 35 year old is more complex, difficult, challenging, and beautiful then life at 3 months though some of the challenge and much of the beauty comes from being around those newborns.

I've been thinking about this as I reflect on recent messages (implicit and explicit) that I've heard at church. Messages that I interpret as questioning why all Christians can't be more like new Christians. You know the ones who are all fired up for their faith; who eagerly share it with their scores of non-Christian friends; who can't get enough Christian reading material; who in short seem so full of life. These people are contrasted with seasoned (old?) Christians who hang out with their Christian friends; who rarely speak of faith outside of worship services; who seem to be just limping along.

It seems to be that perhaps asking a veteran Christian to take on the attributes of a new Christian is similar to asking a 35 year old to act like an infant. Or put another way that our Christian life gets more complex, difficult, challenging, and (we trust) more beautiful the longer we are Christians. Making the gushing enthusiasm of the recent convert as rare in the seasoned believer as cuddly, wide-eyed cuteness of infants in older adults.

Why would this be so? Possibly because the transformations that take place at conversion while often the most dramatic changes in the life of the believer may also be the simplest to make. While it may be difficult to change sinful habits, we can at least identify sin in the external habits and take obvious if hard steps to change. God in His grace often enables this to happen (though perhaps not as often or quickly as we'd like to think). But once the obvious areas of the sinful lifestyle are more or less dealt with we discover the more difficult truth that our very nature is sinful. That changing behavior is not sufficient to deal with sin, instead we must regularly (daily? hourly?...) die to ourselves and submit to God. That the Spirit is not simply filling a void in our lives, but actually wants to transform our minds and make us into an entirely new creation.

We admire the infants gleeful shouts of "mama" and "dada" but we know that in time they will learn that some parents abandon their children, others abuse them, and most do their best to love their children despite their own imperfections. A relationship to any mother or father is a complex thing. I would suggest that a relationship with a heavenly Father also proves to be a complex thing making it much more difficult for the experienced Christian to speak glibly about that relationship (though perhaps they may learn to retain a sense of glee).

I think we also discover on our pilgrimage that the message of the Kingdom involves more then converting individuals (though that is involved) but also requires working to transform systems of darkness and injustice. That the Spirit is ultimately at work to transform the world itself into a new creation. This require difficult and serious work but work that we are uniquely gifted and called too. Work that when undertaken brings deep joy. However this work is difficult to do alone and God has generously provided other believers to work along side of us to encourage and prod us to keep up the task. Ultimately I believe this work to create Kingdom communities and to combat injustice in the world are significant witnesses to the world of the hope we have in Christ.

So what do we make of the new believers? Should we scoff at their naivete? I think we are right to celebrate their enthusiasm and admire the progress they make from darkness to light. Their desire to share their new found faith is natural and should also be encouraged. But I don't think we should idealize this time in the life of faith as the goal just as we celebrate the new life in the cute infant but recognize her goal is to progress beyond infancy. In faith, as in parenting, I think we need to be especially mindful of the often painful adolescent period that usually precedes maturity.

Isaiah 40:31 says: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Philip Yancey wrote that he first thought the order (fly, run, walk) was backwards but later concluded that the progression (digression?) actually describes the life of faith for many. They begin soaring to great heights but finish just trying to keep walking. (I think this was in What's so Amazing About Grace). I always thought that was curious.

Zen and the art of denying what I find uncomfortable

I've been speaking a little bit over the last few weeks with a friend of mine who is a Zen Buddhist. I really respect how well he thinks things out. I've also been really impressed with some of the concepts that are core to his belief system. Here are my thoughts about these ideas.

Be totally present in the current moment. If I am at work, be at work. Don't be thinking about running, or sailing, or dinner, or whatever. If I'm at home, be at home, don't be consumed by expectation of things that are coming down the line, or anxious about situations in life outside my control.

A technique to help being present in the moment is stillness. This is a little different from the idea behind meditation, but goes hand and hand. It can be hard to not be anxious as we go from one sphere of our lives to another, but pausing during the transitions can be very effective.

Now, this just brushes the surface of our conversations, but I've already got to rant about a couple of things.

First, there is a real problem to me adopting these ideas for myself as I have. Its not justifiable to say, well, if it works for you, than its true for you. A tendency towards relative truth or relative goodness that comes from that approach. Further, if there is some truth in this, than so be it, it can't be denied by wishful thinking or dismissal. I think that we are called to seek truth regardless of the consequences. Sizzler Salad Bar Religion: Picking and choosing things from a religion that suit me, and leaving the things that are uncomfortable. I can't think of a better way to avoid TRUTH.

Second, lets talk about the opposite approach. Taking everything that I've learned from my friend and immediately trying to fit it into my own belief system, squeezing a square peg into a round hole. Can I really grow if I'm immediately dismissing ideas that don't fit easily within my own world view?

It is dishonorable to have a conversation with a person about religion with the sole purpose of teaching them my own dogma. If I desire to share what TRUTH I have gleaned with a person (which I do! I am, after all, an evangelical Christian. ), than it is hypocritcal of me not to listen to them in return and truly consider what they have to say.

Let me describe the problem anecdotally. I was relating some of the ideas above with another friend of mine and he responded by saying: 'yes, but even though he has the apperance of deep thought, its not truly meaningful because it isn't based on scripture' What! Excuse Me! I wanted to punch him. How could I dismiss a person who is really struggling to find the truth by saying that he doesn't have any real and valid deep reasoning because his belief system is different from own.

Three things that once happened

Part 1
Once upon a time, in the misty and distant past, I was a college student. One year while living in the dorms someone or other hired a hypnotist to come do a show in one of the dorm meeting rooms. I don't remember many details of the show, but certain elements stand out in my memory clear as glass. Somehow or another, I got selected along with 5-10 other people to go up on stage. I don't remember exactly what this fellow's system was; I think he mostly just told us to close our eyes and relax. In those days it took very little prompting for me to do just that.

There exist, no doubt, in this wide world different 'flavors' of the hypnotism experience, but in mine I remained lucid the entire time. It was something like a game of 'simon says'. He would say - "you are going up in an elevator" - and I/we would imagine going up in an elevator. He would say "you are flying in an airplane", and we would lean over to look out the window, seeing only the floor. It was a game of make-believe. Yet! Yet, it was more than just a game of charades. Some part of my mind or body DID respond to these experiences as though they were real. He said "it's getting very cold in here" and I shivered. Shivering is not something you can really do intentionally. (is it?) He said "it's getting very hot in here", and (I think) I started to sweat.

But the hypnotist's cord is wrapped very lightly around the subject. I was frequently though not constantly aware that I was sitting in front of a large audience who were laughing. I knew I was playing along (and felt a little guilty, thinking I was faking it). I had to make a choice to stick with the 'game'. I percieved that hypnosis is an illusion you need to put some effort into believing. At the very least, you need to stave off doubt. Once you grasp the absurdity of what you are doing, you can't just hop right in without a little bit of coaching.

Anyway, back in the last century, that's what it was like to be hypnotized


Part PI/2
An interlude (and apologies for telling you something you probably already know) the way your eyes are physically constructed, the center of your vision is pretty poor at picking out minor differences in luminosity. If you go out at night, you'll often see stars in your peripheral vision that fade from sight when you try to look at them directly. Really it is just the way your eyes are built, but I can't help but think of those stars as malicious little bastards. No doubt they are up to no good, just out of sight.


Part 2
When I was a child I believed in God because the alternative was too horrifying. By the time I had advanced to some indeterminate age between youth and my (yet-to-arrive) adulthood I had worked out a fairly decent defense for my faith. It involved rules of evidence, otherwise-inexplicable historical facts and a touch of the transcendant. That system of thought formed itself in an organic, piece by piece manner. I'd have a crisis of faith one month, read a lot, and after some time I would find that the emotional aspects of the crisis were gone. Some bits of what I had read stuck with me. After many cycles of this I had absorbed a lot of assertions, arguments and suppositions that formed this informal framework or foundation on which my faith rested.

Ironically enough, this "system of rational thought" operated best at the subconscious level. Its preferred mode of operation was to work like a low dose of penicillin, keeping the doubt at bay before it could flare up. When I would actually think through any of the individual ideas, they were rather flimsy and insubstantial. But doubt is usually a broad, diffuse force, and against such blows my spiderweb held firm.

I had a bad couple of years. It was probably the worst part of my life, and during that time a lot of once-certainties were undermined. The crisis was not originally about God, but more about my own identity and place in the world. But God got caught up in it all the same. Or, to be specific, my beliefs about God did. In a time of uncertainty you look for something firm to grasp a hold of. One by one I'd turn to each of these reasons and supports for help. I was losing hold of God and needed something to could make him grasp-able by my mind. One by one these reasons would wink out under my directed gaze. They fell individually with such force that when I looked away from them, they had lost their subtle power to encourage.

Some truths are hard to deny, others are hard to hold on to. I'm not sure which is the case here, but I'm rooting for the latter.

A question for the philosopher studying warrant... In some systems of belief (I am including scientific theories here), each tenet of the system can be seen as making sense both individually and as an integral component of the entire system. In others, each tenet is individually weak, and it is only when woven together with its brethern that the system makes sense. In this model, each of the individual beliefs in a sense covers the weaknesses of the others. ... Is one of these systems inherently more worthy of belief? Is there such a thing as 'emergent warrant'?


Part e
Another interlude. When I play the better sort of video game I dodge bullets. Literally (in a sense). I lean about at the keyboard. I'm not sure if it helps in the game, but I'd be reluctant to just sit stock still. This is sort of the evil twin of the star thing. When looking at stars, it is your indirect faculties that percieve things more clearly than your intentional ones. When dodging bullets in a video game, your irrational self is convinced of a state of affairs which (while entertaining for spouses) is quite off the mark.


Part 3
Once upon a time I went to Las Vegas. I stayed in a hotel that was patterned off of a stylized and idealized Venice. It was surprisingly beautiful. To my miserably uneducated eyes, the statues and murals were every bit as well done as what you might see in a second-rate Italian museum or cathedral (which is still saying something). ((( This raises a question about sculpture for one thing - if an *exact* replica of Michelangelo's David is artistically less valuable than the original - where exactly is that surplus value carried? Is the original's marble somehow chemically different? Is there some spiritual element attached somehow to the original? If the two were put in a bag and shaken up so that no one could tell them apart - would the original's value be destroyed? )))

At any rate, the centerpiece of the hotel was this indoor... mall. The ceiling was roughly two stories tall and painted to look like the sky at sunset. The walls were decorated to look like Ventian streets. There was even a canal carved in the floor in which replica gondoleers paddled replica gondolas filled with authentic overweight americans. In the larger spaces the long walls of the 'piazzas' were ever so slightly curved, making them look longer than they really were. Other than the canal, which had pool-blue water, the illusion was masterful. The first time I walked into the area I was genuinely puzzled why the sun was setting. Like most people, I generally prefer ugly authenticity to beautiful artifice. But somehow, inexplicably, the illusion worked. I won't say I believed I was IN venice per se, but in some subtle way I was willing to believe I was outside, and that there was something behind all those second-story italian shutters.

I was in LV for a work conference, but made plenty of excuses to walk through the streets of las-venice. I can't put my finger on what made it appealing - partly it was admiration for the illusion and partly it was participation in the illusion.

After a few walks something in my head started to rebel. I noticed imperfections in the illusion like the modern gates leading to the docks where the gondolas landed and vents painted over with wispy clouds. I made a choice somewhere in this time. I made a choice to push out those inconvenient facts and inhale more deeply the illusion. It was as if one part of my mind was trying to protect another part of my mind.

One night my coworker and I sat down at an 'outside cafe' in the ... mall (there really is no other more accurate word for it). In Pseudo-Venice. It was great, I was sitting outside at sunset drinking wine and talking philosophy with this guy. The sky was really nice - just enough clouds to catch the color of the setting sun. I probably had pasta, and some kind of wine that's a mix of other wines (I never knew such a beast existed). By the end of dinner I hated the place. It was too unsettling - this place that never changes. You know the fear about heaven getting boring? - this place put some stock in that fear.

After that, las vegas was totally ruined for me. It wasn't just that one area, it is really the fault of the entire town - the enormous waste of energy, the lies about money and fun and respect and sex. The whole place is predicated on these lies that are individually absolutely absurd on their face. But they are also so compelling that we visitor willingly sell ourselves to them. People going to the casino know the odds are against them yet, if honest, expect to win. The hotels rip out the asthetic beauty of world architecture from context and plop it down into a desert, as though the only thing worthwhile of something like the Trebbia fountain is the color of it's fountains at night.

I went to LV expecting to be disgusted. I was impressed for the first several days - the illusions were obvious, but I had to concede they were expertly done. In the end, my dislike of LV was essentially confirmed. I can handle being lied to - that's a fair fight. But LV asks us to lie to ourselves. It looks to start a civil war between the part of us that dodges videogame bullets and the part of us that fills out a tax form. And if the city ever catches you at war with yourself, it starts chewing on you.


Part N+1
Slogans seduce

Preference

I've been scooting about India for the last two weeks visiting my wife who is nearing completion of a year working here. We took a trip out to the country, which was great. But this trip, including our excursion has brought into focus something that I've been dwelling a lot on over the last 6 months.

I have too much Preference. With a capital P. What do I mean by that? Preference is the overarching desire to have things my way. I enjoy a bleu cheese burger, exactly so, from Moody's, I like to have a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich from Charilie's. I want to make sure I get the bulkhead seat on the window side on the 24 hour flight(s) home from India. None of these things seem so bad, but there is a really nefarious side to them.

The problem with having a preference on everything is that it reveals a really strong level of expecatation. The problem, in turn, with expecatation is that it keeps us from enjoying things outside of the level of expectation. Further, it limits the possibilty of finding out something new that we enjoy.

Take my flight home. I have travelled enough times now that I know the best way to get exactly the seat I want. When I get that seat, I'm slightly more comfortable on the trip home. However, if I don't get it, I'm disproportionately aware of my discomfort in some other, more cramped seat.

This whole problem is slightly more exasperated by this fact.... I always get my way. Say what! You do? Yes, I do. I don't have kids, I'm the CEO of my own business, I have enough resources and drive to get the things I want. Pretty much ALL THE TIME! This might sound pompous, but I think some of my closest friends would agree that even though they have fun doing things with me, we pretty much always do the things I want. I also have a high level of contentment. Part of why I get what I want a lot is that I really don't want all that much most of the time, and when I do, its within my means.

Which is what makes this concept of Preference so annoying. Its trivial! I'm content with the big things in my life, so what do I care if the burger is a little more well done than I like. So what if I am a little uncomfortable for a few hours. If I didn't dwell on these things, they wouldn't even be an issue.

More thoughts on Food

Last Saturday, I finally finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I have really enjoyed this book. No I didn't read it, but I did listen to all 15 hours of the audiobook.

As a result of reading this book, I have started 3 new projects. I hope to continue at least 2 of them. Leila and I began Project 1 on April 1st. We planted seeds: tomato, pepper, onion, herbs, and lettuce. Leila agreed to these vegetables as a start. So now on our back porch we have about 100-120 little plants coming up. In May, we will transplant them to either planters that go on the patio and front porch or to the yard. I am most excited about the tomato plants. We have about 4 varieties from Early Girl (a hybrid) to Brandy (a large organic). There are also 3 types of salad greens.

Project 2 was making hard cider. I did it and it did not turn out great. I used juice from the grocery store along with champagne yeast. It fermented but I think I should have tried using organic apple cider--the kind that isn't clear. I think I am going to try this next.

Finally Project 3--cheese making. This Sunday we are going to try to make fresh mozzarella. From there, who knows? It might turn out well or it might be disgusting. We'll have to see.

Most of these projects are a result of the book. I want to be more involved in our food.

People have had to produce their own food for thousands of years and I want to be part of the food that I am partaking of. As a boy, my dad would force us to go out to the garden to hoe the plants. I hated it. HATED IT. I also hated picking beans. And stringing them. I did however enjoy the cucumbers, tomatoes, and watermelons.

I remember the time that my dad and I were picking the green beans. We both started on different rows. He was faster. When he was about half way up his row, I started pulling up the plants by their roots as I picked the beans. (You have to pick bean plants several times and I did not want to have to return to this job again.) When he finished picking his row, he turned around and saw what I had done. He did not punish me but he did laugh. He wasn't really happy that I had pulled up the plants but he understood. I didn't pull up any more plants on anymore rows for a long time.

I guess I wrote this entry because I wanted to somehow mark the end of reading the book. I began the book walking to school in March. I listened to it as I drove to southern Illinois. I finished it running at the gym.

Lament of a Bane Spider

Come closer little plump and juicy humans. Come into my web. Sting ye, I will. Roll ye in me sticky cords and sip on ye succulent juices for weeks. What's this! Juicy and angry Beastman. Get ye away. Easy this prey is. Mine it is. Get away. Web and Wound and Wind it will I. No! Mine. Kill it not so quickly. Savor, Slober and Siphon will I. Rend and Ruin and Ravage do you! Nooooo. Poor juicy dwarf. All tastyness and goodness spilling on Floor. Wasted! Wasted!

Master is displeased. Useless he says. Short is your reach and weak is your sting he says. Worthless says he. Only good for absorbing nasty blades and blocking nasty arrows with your pestilential body.

No food have I. No honor have I. No sting to break through shiny armor have I. Die do I. Too quickly. Too quickly.

The Good News

What is the "good news" that Christianity offers? Answering that question was our assignment in Dan's class at church a couple of weeks ago. I think it is a good one.

Here are some ideas that keep coming back to me.

Rest - Rest from what others think. Rest from trying so hard and failing. Rest from having to be a hero, or a saint. Rest from all the work everyone claims is so important.

Judgment - Are people really able to get away with stuff? We need judgment if we want justice. Jesus promises that the poor, the weak, the meek will have their day as will the rich, the corrupt, and the proud.

Company - Christ is a God who literally walks and talks with us. A God who is not a super hero but a peasant. A God/man who most mysteriously relives the passover identifying not most obviously as the Mosaic deliverer but with the cursed first born of Egypt condemned to death.

So why do I have a hard time proclaiming this good news, this gospel, to others? I fear that rest, judgment, and company are vegetable virtues, I understand why I should want them but alas I hard time convincing myself, let alone making a compelling case to others to partake.

I still feel my work may pay off, that I have more to lose then gain by judgment, and that I'm fine on my own. God have mercy.

(photo by Mandalynn http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandaberry/3247012/)

Nalgene vs Sigg

Oh yeah--that's right. Another conspiracy about what's bad for you.

I have been using Nalgene bottles for years--at least 6. And I drink a lot a water. I drink a liter in the morning before school, one before lunch, one after lunch before the end of the day, sometimes half a one on the way home, and one before I go to bed. Minimum of 4 liters per day. That's a lot of peein'.

Anyhow, back to the bottles.

I keep reading about this chemical Bisphenol A (or BPA) that leaches out of polycarbonate (or #7 plastics). It leaches out more at higher temps but even at room temperature, it has been shown to leach out into the solution. 2 bad things--I use(d) Nalgenes that are made of polycarbonate and so are baby bottles. The chemical is basically a synthetic version of estrogen.

As of last week, Canada is considering banning it. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080418.wbpa19/BNStory/National/ )

So what's a guy to do. Well, I've made the switch to metal bottles--aluminum and stainless steel. Sigg is a Swiss company that has been making water bottle/canteens for 100 years. The inner liner of Sigg bottles is an enamel that is baked on and is purported to not be hazardous (by both an independent German agency and the FDA). I have a couple of bottles by Sigg. I also purchased one by a company called Laken who uses and epoxy as a liner that is supposed to not leach out. Finally, Klean Kanteen produces a stainless steel water bottle this is both light, relatively speaking, and resists denting (unlike the aluminum bottles).

I hope I am not wasting my money, but I would probably be wasting in on something else, that would not help me stay healthy.

A requiem for the Ostrogoths

Ok I'm going to wuss out and copy someone else's writing. But what amazing writing it is. The author is Charles Oman, and the title of the book is "Dark Ages 476-918". I first read it years ago, and am working through it again.

To set the scene a bit of history is in order. Up until ~476 there was a roman emperor in Rome or Ravenna (still in Italy). Some of them were dominated by their german generals, but a clear continuity of government could be traced back to the days of Julius Caesar. Then, in 476 one of these ambitious german generals (Odoacer) deposed the last western roman emperor (Romulus). Under Odoacer, Italy and her possessions were formally ruled by the emperor in Constantinople (Zeno) with Odoacer as his agent. In reality however, Odoacer acted as an independent soverign.

This situation eventually proved intolerable to Zeno. He lacked the strength to retake Italy with his own forces and instead turned to Theodoric, the leader of one of the neighboring bands of barbarians. Zeno made a pact with Theodoric wherein Theodoric would take his Ostrogoths into Italy and depose Odoacer. In exchange, Zeno would recognize Theodoric as his agent in Italy in Odoacer's stead.

Theodoric took his entire people into Italy and was wildly successful. He captured & killed Odoacer and defeated or recruited Odoacer's army. He distributed his Ostrogoths as rulers amongst the more populous Italians and settled down as a wise and productive king. The fatal flaw of the government he established was that the Ostrogoths were Arian Christians, a heretical sect which the orthodox italians regarded with hatred.

Decades later, after Theodoric had died, a new eastern emperor (Justinian) rose to the throne. A much more energetic and aggresive ruler than his immediate predecessors, Justinian decided the time to reclaim Italy had come. He sent a series of generals and armies into Italy and after almost two decades of fighting finally wore down and defeated the Ostrogoths. Ok, we're done. Now time to let the master speak...

"So, in the autumn of 533, the few remaining Gothic garrisons laid down their arms, gathered together, and disappeared over the passes of the Alps in to the northern darkness. We have no tidings of the fate of these last survivors of the great Ostrogothic race. Whether they became the vassals of the Frank, or mingled with the Bavarians, or sought their kinsmen the Visigoths of Spain no man can tell.

So perished the Gothic kingdom, which had been erected by the genius of Theodoric, by the same fate which had smitten the pirate-realm of the Vandals seventeen years before. Both fell because the ruling race was too small to hold down the vast territory it had overrun, unless it could combine frankly and freely with the conquered Roman population. But the fatal bar of Arianism lay in each case between masters and servants, and when the orthodox armies of Constantinople appeared, nothing could restrain the Africans and Italians from opening their gates to the invader. The Ostrogoths had been wise and tolerant, the Vandals cruel and persecuting, but the end was the same in each kingdom. It was only in the measure of the resistance that the difference between Goth and Vandal appeared. Sunk in coarse luxury, and enervated by the African sun, the Vandals fell in one year before a single army. The Ostrogoths, the noblest of the Teutons, made a splendid fight for seventeen years, beat off the great Belisarius himself, and only sucummbed because the incessant fighting had drained off the whole manhood of the tribe. If Baduila could have mustered at Taginea the 100,000 men that Witiges had once led against Rome, he would never have been beaten. It is one of the saddest scenes in history when we see the well-ordered realm of Theodoric vanish away, and Italy is left and unpeopled desert, to be disputed between the savage Lombard, the faithless Frank, and the exarchs of distant Byzantium."

Word

Leaping into the fray

Time and money eh? Ok I'll bite...

The thing that impresses me about these dual deities is that they both are uber quantifiers. They allow us to take fuzzy things and assign numbers to them. With money for example allows us to compare cars ($7,995) to cabbage ($1.75). Time has a similar function allowing us to quantify a full days work, or a relationship.

As I've read, quantify things is ultimately very important to our (modern) understanding of information and ultimately knowledge, from physics to economics. To use a crude example I can tell you about a painting by telling you that it took 2 years to complete and is worth 10 million dollars. One may even extrapolate that the painter is worth 5 million a year and compare him to a mediocre starting shortstop.

But what does it mean to compare a shortstop and painter? Do we know anything meaningful about them when we know they each command $5M for a year of work (or are worth over 100 librarians)? In the end I propose that time and money are revered in our society (that exists at latitude =41.997186 and longitude=-87.66653) b/c they allow us to reduce complicated and difficult questions of value and meaning and a reality that exists of unique moments, people, and things into a simple rubric that can be readily shared. They allow us to reduce the many to one. But things like beauty or goodness that "don't have price" are usually left out of the conversation.

So why are we so uncomfortable with the uniqueness of the things that surround us? Why do we inevitably need to organize and compare things? What is the power of numbers that is so compelling and useful but also unsettling?

What are we doing?

Just started reading (listening) to a book entitled Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I'm already ready to move out of the city or at least plant a garden and shop local.

The author starts the book by explaining that she and her family are moving from Tucson to Southern Appalachia. Her husband owns a family farm that they have visited each summer of their married life. Now they are going to live there.

She points out two things that are troubling. One is that they (I guess the state of AZ) built a 300 mile open channel from the Colorado River to Tucson. Water is now diverted for the people's consumption though they were instructed not to use the water in their fish tank as it would kill the fish. As the water moves from the Colorado to Tucson, much water evaporates and leaves muddy, more mineral-concentrated water arriving in Tucson. (So I think in Tucson, people should be encouraged to drink bottled water. )

The other is that once upon a time the Colorado would empty into the Pacific Ocean. Now it barely makes it into Mexico. We are diverting that much water for both agriculture and human consumption. Tucson was initially taking water from an underground aquifer, but after much of it was depleted and sink holes started to make their appearance, they sought other means.

It seems like we are sorta stealing. Maybe even just outright stealing. What gives us the right to do this? Why should we keep doing this? How long will we be able to keep this up? How will we ever replenish the water for the river? Is it ok if we don't? What else are we stealing?

Double Down Post: 6 word memoirs

The idea is to write a compelling 6 word memoior ala:
Hemingway: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."


My contribution:
But Brutus is an Honarable Man!


Some very interesting ones here:
http://smithmag.net/sixwords/

Leap Day

I have a fascination with Calendars. One of the artifacts of working on programming languages is that you get a very familiar sense with the different ways to represent time. For example, you could say that today is 1204777693833 milliseconds since January 1 1970. This might sound weird to you if you aren't a programmer, but its actually the standard way to represent time in the language I prefer. Then you would take that number and apply a context like so:

1. Gregorian Calendar in the American Style: March 5 2008 10:29 PM
2. Gregorian Calendar in the British Military Style: 5 March 2008 22:29 PM
3. Chinese Republic Era Style: Republic 97 1 28
4. Mike's mental state: about an hour before bedtime, time for a blog post and 2 rounds of BF2

So, from this perspective, time is defined from a certain celestial event. That event is the position of the earth relative to the sun at a time that is defined in the Gregorian calendar as January 1 1970. However, the expression of that time varies by culture, nationality, and even occupation (military vs civilian). In addition, each of us has several internal clocks running: our conception of absolute time as defined by the Gregorian calendar; our scheduling of events as they occur in the day; our internal body functions; probably about 4 or 5 primary calendars and a host of others.

But we can't be too cavalier to say that these representations of time are entirely abstract and without their own inherent relevance! Take GrubHub.com for example. Our expenses are defined on a bi monthly basis. Our revenues are defined on a daily basis. So, our revenue was up 3% for February while expenses stayed the same. Google is very similar (Daily revenue, Monthly Payroll). A 3% difference in for them is a *PROFIT* of 41 Million dollars for February. On the flip side, think about the Sears tower. They had an additional day of heating expenses, but earned only the standard monthly revenue for their tenants. That could amount to a loss in the range of about $100K

The transformation from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar introduced the concept of 97 Leap Days every 100 years . The goal was to permanently set the vernal equinox on March 21st. This transformation was decreed and adopted by most Catholic countries the date October 5 1582 was followed by October 15 1582 (although the day of the week didn't skip!) Across most of Europe, landlords tried to charge rent for the entire month of October which lead to several peasant revolts which had to be calmed by Pope Gregory himself!

In conclusion, our subjective Calandaraization of objective celestial time has far reaching and concrete effects on our material lives.

Homework for the reader:
Ponder the relationships between the two gods of American culture in our time: money and time

(American culture in our time is defined by the culture that exists at latitude =41.997186 and longitude=-87.66653 on the WSG84 datum as of 1204777693833 milliseconds since January 1 1970 defined by the Gregorian calendar as set on 24 February 1582 by papal bull Inter gravissimas.)

10 places I'd like to go before I die

I tried to limit this to places I could conceive myself actually reaching, so Mars and Tibet are out.

10. The pyramids of egypt
One of the first fortune cookies I got as a kid said something like "You will visit the pyramids before you die". Even back then I knew it was pretty good as fortune cookies go. I don't really have any idea what Egypt is like for tourists so it's kind of on the backburner for now.

9. A hill in eastern Europe overlooking the asian steppes
So much history involves people and armies passing back and forth between Europe and Asia. From the goths to the huns and mongols to napoleon and hitler and stalin. I'd like to stand on a hill in poland or the ukraine and watch the sun rise over asia

8. The Mississippi
Water that touches the Mississippi is literally four blocks from my front door. I really want to get a raft or boat or whatever and paddle down the elegantly named "north shore sanitation canal". Take that to the Chicago River, to the Illinois River, to the Mississippi. From there to New Orleans down the slow and muddy carotid artery of america.

7. Gettysburg
I went once as a kid and loved it. The land has been very well preserved - you get a real sense of continuity with the past. I want to take my kids in early July, walk the battlefield and eat peanut soup and pumpkin fritters

6. Shawnee national forest
This is supposed to be a really cool place (as far as Illinois goes). Very much unlike the parts of Illinois I'm familiar with, apparently in large part because the glaciers never reached that far south.

5. A glacier (with kids)
My grandkids probably won't have the chance to see any glaciers. I've seen them in Alaska, but I want my kids to see them too before they are gone. Seeing them in pictures just doesn't do them justice.

4. Iceland
I can't explain my fascination with iceland, but it's a place I really want to go. I'm actually ready to move there if Sally would let me. Iceland has a really interesting history - it was at once the wild west of it's day, but is also in some sense the birthplace of modern democracy. It has a very rich literary tradition even though it was something of a cultural backwater. Modern Iceland is a very progressive place with beautiful society, landscape and people

3. English countryside
I've been there once but want to go back. Driving down these tiny roads between hedges and through these little country towns. It was awesome and I want to go back.

2. The arctic circle
I'd fly to anchorage, rent us a SUV and fill it full of water, food, spare tires, fuel, shotguns, mosquito nets, tire chains, flares, GPS and a satellite phone. Then I'd drive north until I hit either Prudhoe Bay, the Arctic circle, or a pothole I couldn't work around. I'd like to confidently be the member of my gene pool to travel furthest north, and I think crossing (entering?) the arctic circle is the best way to do that. For some odd reasons of provincalism, I don't have much interest in the southern hemisphere.

1. Rome
I am ready to go back today. I liked the ancient city and the modern city. Each breath you take is full of history and humanity. Every church is a treasure trove richer than most art museum. Every street has a little mystery to conceal.

Just wondering

Unable to compose the planned blog post on the role of rhetoric in politics, I now share with you some things I'm wondering about...

Was the 1990s America's "Golden Age"?

What will ultimately be remembered as more significant in the history of our country the 2000 election or the attack of 2001?

Are libraries better served by shushing conversations or encouraging them?

Should we spend our time learning lots of different things or absorbing one thing really deeply?

Why aren't evolutionist more confident that life can adapt successfully to a warmer earth?

Why did the Romans value rhetoric so much? What is the relationship between rhetoric and cynicism? Do we undervalue the rhetorical role of our elected officials? ...

Why it is Better to Study the Bible in a Group Setting

Brief thought:

I think that after the many studies I have been in, it is better to study the Bible with a group of people. I am not saying that we should stop having personal Bible studies, but I am saying that maybe they should be in conjunction with a group study.


By studying with others, we are not allowed to wallow in our pessimism and doubt for long without someone having another idea just as valid as ours that contradicts it. Sometimes it's good to wallow, but usually only for for a certain period of time.

Also others are there to correct our whacked-out ideas. Likewise we are there to help others.

Studying alone allows our minds to get off track and stay off track. I do believe that the Holy Spirit is involved but what if he is involved by using others to aide us?

We need other people.

Snow, cold and music

I don't usually listen to music on my way to work. Well--I guess I don't really listen to music any time unless it's on a movie, or a TV show or someone else is just playing it and I happen to be there.

It's not that I don't like music. I do. It was a big part of my life from 6th grade until my second year of college. I played the tuba and trombone.

But I don't choose to listen to it on a regular basis. If it weren't for others in my life, I probably would not listen. My students enjoy listening to music when they are working on their assignments. And my wife likes listening to music.

So whatever she listens to, I usually listen to.

Anyhow, I was planning on listening to an audiobook this morning as I walked to work. I walked up the stairs to the Metra platform and as I waited, I got out my ipod, put the headphones in, and turned it on. My wife put a few songs on there for me.

Snow was coming down. It was cold. There was not much wind and the snowflakes were quite large. Cue the music.

And it was like I was transported to an emotional scene in a movie. Snowflakes dropping all around. As each snowflake landed on the platform it would immediately melt. Music was playing loudly in my headphones. No one else could hear it. I was alone. (Is this why teenagers put on headphones? To be alone and in their own world?) I was waiting for the Metra to zoom me off to school, but for those 4 minutes I was engulfed in a world where all was perfect. I was existing in a perfect world. Perfect in the sense that I felt it was perfect.

Sometimes I think that emotions are what life is about. I know this is not true. But sometimes I feel like I don't feel anything. I want to feel.

This morning on that platform, life was good. Great. Perfect. I was standing outside with snow coming down on me, cold, and listening to a song.

Come Inside... its Cold

"This is Merchandise Mart"

I'm really happy that I had this meeting downtown this morning. I don't get to walk downtown in the cold as much as I used to. I can't believe that Jake wrote about crossing that bridge last week. I totally get what he means. This is gonna be awesome, its about 10 blocks to my meeeting. I love getting off the train early to walk outside.

Man, Its cold out here. I'm gonna shift over to La Salle so I can see the board of trade as I'm walking downtown. Here it is, come on in. Sit there, just there, behind my eyeballs. Do you feel that, the frost crystalyzing inside your nose. Don't pull up the scarf. Ok, relax the shoulders, and all the muscles, stop fighting the cold. Feel it. Really feel it. let is get right into your chest. Ok, now take a deep breath. really deep. use my nose and my mouth, YEAH! feel all the snot and moisture in your nose freeze right up.

Oh man, Steve, I wish you could feel this. You're down there in Georgia, and don't even know how awesome winter can be. Look up there at that statue on top of the Board of Trade. What is it. Is it a grotesque idol? A symbol of worship to money and man's greed. Or wait, is it a picture of mankind striving against the world, against circumstance, against the very curse that God has laid on us. What!, is that blashpemy! NO! Did he expect us to take it lying down? To just roll over and say. "Well earth, if you won't yield crops to me without effort than I'll just die" NO! I'm gonna work. HARD.

Ok, now we're walking, and the blood's pumping, and the cold on the outside is at war with the fire on the inside, and the no man's land is about an inch beneath my skin. Much closer to my heart than it usually is. But at least its still a battleground. All of the dead, lying cold in their graves, they've stopped fighting. What am I gonna do, wrap myself up tighter, try and ignore this wintery blast? No, you can wrap me tight when I'm six feet under the ground. I'm gonna fight this cold with blood, and life.

God! Why can't anyone else see this from in here. I'm never gonna be able to right all this down and really capture what I mean. About half way now. Don't really even feel the cold anymore, except on my nose, and my cheeks. Listen to that, thousands of cars. A million marching humans all around me, just strugling? Is it futile? Yes. Is it noble? Yes.

Man I love this. I don't get it. I don't understand why someone wouldn't want to live a thousand years on this beautiful earth. People are so quick to comfort the grieving. They say, death is natural. Fuck that! Death is wrong. I feel it in the fiber of my being. I hate it. I absolutely detest it. Jesus Wept.

I love this cold. Went camping just a couple of weeks ago. And for about 30 minutes, I felt it: this cold is deadly. You can't just lie down. You can't! I love walking it it. I love knowing that walking it is keeping me alive. How did I ever survive without winter? Winter teaches us. Yes, it can be depressing. So what! You can't be happy all the time. Its not about being happy. Its about being winter, so suck it up and quit your whining.

Large coffee.
Don't let it cool. Come on, take that little sip, and swallow too fast. DANG! Ouch! Hot Hot HOT. That was dumb. Don't do that again. Ahhhh. Right in the belly. Yum.

A healthy world

The shootings at NIU are just the latest piece of evidence that we live in a sick world. I have been thinking about the health of the world all week after reading an essay by Wendell Berry last week-end.

Berry argues that we must attend to the health of our country and by country he means literally our dirt, if we wish to improve the health of our human communities. Here is a quote:

The health of nature is our primary ground of hope - if we can find the humility and wisdom to accept nature as our teacher. -- Berry, Sex Economy, Freedom, & Community p. 11

Why is the health of nature the ground of our hope? First b/c the continuation of our lives are dependent upon the air, water, and food we harvest from the world. I doubt we truly understand how contingent our lives are. But second the flourishing of the natural world is a source of beauty, joy, and intellectual stimulation. Nature can affect us with wonder and tenderness, or it can call forth courage and fortitude. It also challenges our minds to understand its complexity. Third, nature teaches us our limitations. This is often unwelcome lesson. Often the heat or cold of the natural world assail us, the pace of the natural world wearies us, and the decay of the natural world frightens us.

We chafe at these limits and attempt to isolate and overcome them. We insulate ourselves from the uncomfortable temperatures, we seek diversions that happen on our schedule and our under our control, finally and most decisively when come up with all types of schemes to deny, or actually reverse the decay we see in nature. Schemes, that draw little from the patterns of growth (often slow and difficult) and renewal (usually involving transition to new generations) nature provides. But unfortunately our pretensions at limitlessness often reduce the diversity and vitality of the natural world leaving it ugly and dull and denying our selves the joy and beauty once found there. And of course all of this ultimately threatens to poison the very essential sustenance upon which we (still) depend.

Maybe none of this is very new to you. This week as I've chewed on this I've been reminded of another role that nature fills. The role of divine revelation. Once considered God's second book, I think our increasing distance from nature, indeed posturing ourselves as nature's antagonist, is also taking us further from nature's God. I fear our distance from the created world only compounds our difficultly understanding a God whose plan takes generations to bring to fruition, who promises salvation through suffering, and who promises us an abundant life.

Finally, circling back around to NIU. I don't think you can blame our estrangement from the natural world for the crime, but if we seek to make crimes like this more rare I think we need to be open to asking some big questions. Especially questions about who we are as humans and how we are related to this world around. Leading to questions about what really satisfies us and allows us to live with joy.

My name is John and I am a pack rat. Or, how do you know when to stop a hobby?

Hello. My name is John and I am a pack rat. I keep everything. Everything. Receipts. Old letters. Old emails. Pictures. Things I've written. Things I've read. Things I want to read.

So when I have a hobby, I jump in. All the way. And I tend to keep it around for a long time.

Take homebrewing for instance. We were at a Waccamaw Pottery that was going out of business a few years ago and they had what looked to be some sort of can that one could use to make more beer. I had recently discovered that beer was not evil and that it tasted pretty good too. So I bought it.

There were three cans of dark syrup. I read the cans. I then read the intructions online. Mr. Beer. Mr. Beer Home Brewery to be more precise. That was the name of the company that had produced the three cans that I now owned. But I only had the malted syrup and I needed something for the beer to ferment in and so I found a bucket. I brewed my first batch and it was not so great. Then one of our neighbors had a yardsale and they had the real Mr. Beer kit, with the fermenter and bottles. Sweet!!

I proceeded to dive further and further into the world of homebrewing. I bought more buckets, "recycled" from trash piles, read books, shopped ebay, went to scrap metal yards, went to stores going out of business. I purchased cornelius (pepsi) kegs. I purchased 8 gallon tamale pots. I made a lauter tun to sparge my grains. I bought a small refrigerator for the kegs. Pretty soon, all this equipment took up a lot of room.

It also took up a lot of time. Whenever my wife was occupied on a Saturday, I would take advantage of the situation by having a brew day. If I made a 5 gallon batch from scratch (all-grain), it would take 8-9 hours. The beer was good. But it wasn't GREAT. I wanted it to taste like Bells', like Goose Island, like New Glarus. It didn't.

And I had other hobbies. I started doing more backpacking. I got into that. But I also kept brewing. One only has so much space in one's basement. One only has so much time.

I liked brewing. It made me feel like I was producing a product that I could enjoy. Others liked it more than I did. It was fun. But I wasn't great. And it took up entire days to brew, and then more time to transfer, and hours to bottle. And then more days of waiting -- usually two weeks after bottling.

I made an IPA following the best recipe for extract brewing. I used the best yeast. I followed the direction meticulously. In the end, it was good. Maybe even pretty good. But not great.

So . . . . . finally, after many years and many batches and many bottles, it is now time for the pack rat to clear out space in the basement. I need the room down there and I can buy a GREAT beer for $9 a six pack. I can buy awesome beer for $12 a bottle.

I have other hobbies and maybe someday, I'll return to brewing, but for now it is time to stop a hobby. Farewell.



(As I write this, I am corresponding with a gentleman from Milwaukee who is going to purchase all my brewing supplies.)

Memory and Consciousness

I often hear people tell me that they don't remember much of their childhood. That before a certain date or period in their life, they just don't have much there. My usual response to this is to wait about 15 minutes in the conversation until that topic has passed and then ask questions that evoke memories from when someone is young. Usually, I'll talk about a cartoon or something and then see if we can talk about the stuff somebody did during or after the cartoon. Thundercats works particularly well. Its very easy to disprove the claim that a person doesn't remember their childhood.

Then, there is the issue of whether or not the memories that we have of childhood, or yesterday for that matter, are constructed. Certainly to some degree they are tainted and filtered through our current conciousness, but how much do the core facts change?

I'll leave the theoretical and academic discussion for another time. I'm interested in a few very practical questions. In particular, I've always had, and still have a burning desire to share the experience of my consciousness with another person. Words are such a poor means of communicating internal reality. First, both parties can have no guarantee that the words being used are understood the same way by both parties. Second, describing a total set of senses, impressions and details would be very hard. Third, that which is communicated is necessarily conscious.

Now what do I mean by saying I've "always had" this feeling? Well, more accurately, I remember thinking about consciousness (albeit without the same complexity) from an extremely young age. And further, I firmly believe that these memories are not constructed because I have memories of these memories. This iterative recogitation of recogitation goes back in a chain every several months all the way to the age I was 5 or 6. This is probably very weird. Not many 6 year olds are concerned with consciousness, nor of memory. But, hey there it is.

In particular, I remember just before 1st grade, thinking about why I am "me" That is, why doesn't mommy, or brother, or grandpa feel what I am feeling. Why when I tell my arm to move, does my arm move, and not Matt's. Why can't Matt make my arm move (without hitting me). Oh, "me" is different from "not me" ok. where is my GI Joe...

Another moment, I remember walking from my house to the bus stop in 2nd grade. I remember the hill of the house next to mine on the way up to the intersection where we stood. I remember stopping and saying. "I will always remember this moment. And stopping at this moment. And remembering to remember this moment."

Also, I remember making that same assertion at other times. Yet, I can't remember some of the times I made that assertion, only that I had made it several times, and that some of the times I had made the assertion didn't stick, although the memory of failing the assertion did.

My next post is going to be an attempt to share as much of the full experience of cold whether running as I can. I've picked that experience because it is incredibly rich with both internal and external sensations, and those senses are more important than the conscious thought experienced during the activity.

Foxhole theology

Look down upon the earth - a beautiful swirling kaleidoscope of clouds and water and dirt and snow. Come closer - see these masses of land - unchanging save for the top few inches which scroll through an endless progression of colors - green orange brown white green orange brown white. Look closer - see villages rise, grow, die. There is life here - life slowly reshaping this world. Ah! Slow down! Look here! A flash of light - and another and another. All along an ugly scar of dirt the lights flicker and flash. Listen carefully - a sound like endless thunder runs up and down this scar. My how it roars, like a mortally wounded lion. Here, here - let us go all the way down. Here is a building of some sort - made of stone. The entrance is half-buried with dirt from some titanic explosion. A crack, just enough to admit a little light and noise, let us enter - quietly now. Hush - many men are here in the dark, two hunched in the corner. The others laying on the floor in attitudes of supreme indifference.

"What was that? They are coming!"

"Listen you fool - the bombardment is falling all around - front and back. No one is coming. Not yet"

The bombs fall closer. The world of sound dies for a moment, leaving only pain. How long? It roars and roars. The earth shakes - the world is being unmade. More pain. Then sight dies - all that remains is a grey dusty featureless void. Time passes.

"It is moving on - at last"

"This is my first time in a bunker under such an inferno"

"We are lucky - the boche built this dugout well"

"If only they had dug deeper"

A shrug

"You are with the second company?"

"Yes - how did you know?"

"I saw you when our companies ware billeted together at Minervois. I saw you at the old chapel"

"A beautiful place. I found a pew near the niche with the statue of St Domitius where the sounds of the front were almost inaudible. That fat old priest thought me very pious. He mewed endlessly about my devotion. The silly fool. I'll tell you this - in '14 I learned to sleep on the march; last month I learned to sleep on my knees. Still - I found some peace there, if not the peace the priest thought he was doling out."

"Bessette"

"Eh? What's that?"

"The priest - his name is Father Bessette. You shouldn't speak of him so."

"Why!? He's a charlatan and a profiteer - no better than the factory owner that makes shoes which fall apart at the first sign of rain!"

"You've misunderstood him. Father Bessette offers words of life, and hope. These are real treasures, especially in such a place"

The world ends for a moment. Dust and the stench of cordite fill the room.

Choking, the sergeant spits out one word "Hope!"

Dust settles, minutes pass.

"Yes, hope. Here, under bombardment, when the world shrinks to almost nothing - just the pain in your ears and the retching in your stomach and the fear in your heart. Hope remains"

"Hope? You mean some willful ignorance of your chances out here."

"I understand all too well my chances of seeing tomorrow. That's not what I speak of. Call it perspective. Or understanding. An understanding that all this vileness raging around us is just a shadow of what is truely real. When the world disappears like that, you see that everything we've been taught, everything we see, everything we think is so important - all of it is so petty. Just a shade away from illusion"

"See - this is what I was talking about. Your dear father tells you what you want to hear, and you give him a little tithe or tip. He sells false comfort. I am serious - tell me how this is different than the scum selling the government helmets made from pot metal"

"Ah! You only see what you want to see"

"Me! What does your hope buy you? How does your perspective shield you? Does it ward off bullets? Does it keep the shells from bursting over your head? It does nothing but coax men to rush over the top - to death and maiming."

"Look. The point I care about not is not the benefits of hope - of having something firm to grasp onto when life shakes and bucks like some wild horse trying to be rid of you. Look deeper - if anything can be saved from your time in this bunker, it is to take advantage of this time, when we are stripped of everything - everything but God Himself."

"Ach! Here we are, buried under concrete and steel and dirt - half-interred with a room full of dead germans. Outside, these germans' brothers search for us with high-explosive and shrapnel and gas and machine guns. It is madness, is it not?"

"Aye - no ordinary madness"

"Exactly! It is extravagant! What intelligence could act with such callousness?"

"Well, get it out. I mean it - say it"

"You've been out there for some time no doubt. I'm sure you've seen the same things - and done the same things I have. That old book says that God once killed the whole world over for sin."

"The great flood"

"Yes - the very story. Imagine the sin going on all around us. Imagine the sins we each carry about us. Is the cannoneer loading shells that rip and tear any less guilty than I, who have..."

"Brother, I understand"

"No you don't. Not if you retain a shred of self-love. If it were only me, if I were the only villain, if I were just Cain, then perhaps I could forgive God for his carelessness. But it's millions of us. Millions! If there were a god, he'd stop all this - even if it meant killing me. Killing all of us. I've killed Abel. When he sent the flood he killed the innocent to deal with the guilty. Why won't God return the innocent the favor? Why won't God save the innocent from us? From me?"

The two men sit in silence for some time. The barrage has grown quieter

"They will be coming soon"

"Perhaps. I'll dig out this loophole"

"Don't dig too far"

No one comes. The barrage returns. Twelve kilometers away the german gun crews are starting to drop from exhaustion. One gun crew loads a cannon they have nicknamed "Satan".

"Is that all?"

"What's that?"

"Is that all? Will you give up so easily? Are you so embarrassed by your own God you demur to give a defense? I hope you fight for France with more devotion"

"I'm not sure He needs me to defend him."

"Coward! Fine! Then I need you to defend him. I need ... some hope ... some hope I will be saved ... or punished"

"The truth is, I've been in your shoes. The first time I saw men die in a gas attack I hated God - really hated him. Then, I was at Verdun - at the beginning."

"You are a rare specimen then! Not many lived through that bombardment"

"I had a lot of time to think. No - think isn't the right word. Something much deeper, much older that thought."

Satan is ready. The gun commander triggers the rusting device and a shell begins it's ascent.

"I don't have proof of God, not in the way the old theologians tried to make him appear out of a series of arguments and contradictions and proofs - like a specter at a seance. But I have worked out where He is in all of this war and evil. I understand how to love him amidst all the pain"

The shell halts it's climb, perched for a silver moment amongst the clouds. Then it is cast down from the heavens like lightning, a shining terrible foe.

"Consider that infinitesimal plane where the ocean touches the sky. Now, that place is the human soul. Consider the depths of the ocean - my - listen to that shell, this one will be close"

The shell strikes the bunker, strikes deeply. Concrete vaporizes, steel bends, flesh perishes.
The german soldiers are coming soon. They will retake this line of trench. Next week a notice will appear in the French papers about a successful raid on the enemy in the Somme sector. The Germans will rebuild the bunker and eventually hold this line for another nine months. So many little stories up and down this line of trenches, no?.

Let go of time. Let it slide free. See? The war was not so long after all. Look at how the scars of the land heal. Life returns to no-man's land. Peace.

That one bridge

My favorite bridge is the one over the river at Monroe. The bridge is made of wood & iron, threading a stout line between water and air. It's all very elemental. In some way I can't articulate, I feel like crossing a bridge (on foot - any other mode doesn't count) is one of those activities that is quintessentially human. Like eating cooked meat or singing or witnessing childbirth, when you cross a bridge (especially an elemental one) you are somehow sharing an experience with our vast cloud of ancestors. So crossing that bridge I feel doubly grounded - grounded in the earth and grounded in humanity

Dress Down Day

Dress Down Day at Noble Street College Prep

January 24 was the first dress down day of the second semester at Noble. So what is dress down day? Well in order to understand dress down day, one needs to know the dress code at Noble for a normal day. Students are required to wear a school uniform shirt, khaki pants, a black belt and black dress shoes. When a student chooses not to wear the appropriate attire, he/she receives four demerits and is therefore required to attend a Friday afternoon detention for three hours. (Students are also required to tuck in their shirts.) Staff dress similarly.

So what is dress down day? It is a day where students pay $3.00 (or $4.00 if they pay the day of) to be able to wear clothing other than their school uniform. But there are limitations. They may not wear t-shirts with inappropriate slogans such as beer advertisements. They may not wear shirts that show too much skin. And they may not wear gang colors. Teachers may participate in dress down day as well.

Why dress down day? Dress down day is designed to help students (juniors and seniors) obtain money for prom. All the money goes to help subsidize the cost of prom.

This time around I finally caved and "supported" the students. Actually I made an effort to remember to support them. I usually forget and am one of the only staff members in regular uniform.

Three dollars--that seems like an awful lot to just be able to wear clothes that I want to wear. In the past it was $5 and most of the time I chose not to participate because of the cost. Three dollars seems like a bargain, but what am I supporting? Prom. This doesn't seem like a good idea. Prom is a time for young people to frolic. So why am I supporting it? I guess I am hopefully showing the students that I support them, not necessarily prom.

Three dollars. I can't believe I spent $3 for something so silly. Why does this bother me? I spend $2 on a cup of coffee and yet it bothers me to spend three dollars to show students that I support them. Plus I get to wear whatever I want to to work.

This type of gross exploitation could only happy at a school that requires students to wear uniforms. Does administration like dress down day? Heck no. Deans complain about it and many demerits are issued to students who choose to wear things that are iffy. But year after year the juniors and seniors are allowed to take advantage of the staff and themselves for about $1200 per dress down day. It is a clear winner for them. There is nothing to buy (except bracelets for those that participate) and no overhead. All is profit.

And that is dress down day at Noble. No, it is not as cheap as casual Friday at a business but then again--I am helping to allow young people to engage in merrymaking.

:)

The 31 Flavors of Monarchy - Part 1

Political science, like all sciences, mocks the real world when it invents categories and forces the world around it to fit into an organization made unnaturally neat. Or perhaps it is the English language to blame. German and Greek let us string concepts into almost endless words, reflecting at least some of the real richness of the world around us. The concept of "Monarchy" is one such manmade pigeonhole that masks some of the vibrant diversity of manmade social and political systems. This series of articles will look at a few fault lines that run through the world of 'monarchy', at least in the western world.

One fundamental commonality shared by all monarchies is the idea that one or two individuals possessed some special status which was normally conferred for the life of the monarch. To further understand a particular system, there are a few questions we can ask that quickly illuminate the crucial aspects of that system. Namely:

- What are the accepted ways in which a monarch gains his/her special status?

- How is the special status of the the monarch maintained?

- What is the scope of power acceeded to the monarch?

At the end of the series we will apply these dimensions to a variety of monarchical systems to see how complete a picture these questions provide, and to see where the real world is, once again robbed of its true richness.

Since we are discussing modes of thought and organization with origins in the distant past, let us follow an ancient precept, namely to start at the beginning (dating back at least to the musical Sound of Music). There are many routes to power, some of which will be more or less acceptable in any social/political context. Here are a few examples:

In ancient Germany (in the era of Julius Caesar), the German people were organized into a swirling pattern of larger and smaller people groups (called by the Romans nations and tribes). On occassion, a collection of Germans would establish a firm group identity through mechanisms that are still not fully understood. A common feature of these groups was to identify a *pair* of kings. Very crudely put - one king was the steward and priest for the nation when at peace, the other the great general for the nation when at war. The kings would be selected in popular assemblies and 'raised on the shield'. The liberty of the people was not without constraint - only members of a limited set of recognized 'noble' families could be proclaimed king, the best of which could trace their geneologies back to the very gods. It should be noted that this form of election was not democratic in any modern sense. Instead, we see a limited number of powerful men selecting one of their own to be a ruler over them all.

In the later Roman empire, in both east and west, monarchs tended to arise out of the military. Some (especially in the East) were war heroes to whom the vestigal Senate turned in time of need. Others (especially in the West) were renegade generals who imposed themselves on the Senate by force. To attain real power did not require the approval of the Senate (and many German generals ruled quite successfully from behind the throne), but their acquiescence was needed to attain the title of 'Augustus'.

In the post-Roman germanic west, monarchs typically gained power through conquest. Some kings (especially the Merovingian & later Carolingian dynasties) started with a small personal estate. Others (such as the leaders of the two Gothic hosts and the Vandals) started with no land to speak of, but rather a horde - an entire people on the march. In either case, the successful leaders, through battle, pillage, and intimidation conquered a land to call their own.
As the political landscape stabilized and hardened, the routes to power became considerably less open. From the early middle ages onwards (down to the present), we see long-lived monarchical dynasties forming. For much of these centuries, the position of monarch was purely hereditary, passing (in most places) from father to son. When no heir was available, succession rules were in place to select the next king. (see the Salic Law).

In several monarchical systems, the reigning monarch was either selected or at least confirmed by some set of priests. I call this the consecration system. From King Saul to Charlemagne to the emperors of Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire, it was a religious leader who invested the monarch with his special status. Such systems invariably involved a majorly complex economy of power flowing back and forth between the secular and sacred leaders.

In the above, we see a few examples of the major routes to power:

- Election

- Inheritance

- Coup

- Conquest

- Consecration

Coup and Conquest were constant threats, of greater or lesser threat depending on the political and military strength of the monarch. Some systems were particularly open to coups and rebellion. For example, during much of its history, the Roman empire depended on generals who in some real sense owned the armies they led. The army would take an oath to the general directly, would recieve pay from him directly, and came to see him as their lord and protector. When the Emperor was strong and vigilant, he could manage the power of his generals through frequent reassignments, forced retirements, etc. If the Emperor was not cautious, the temptation to claim the purple grew irresistable for far too many generals. This trend only became worse as the Roman empire came to depend more and more on foreign troops led by foreign generals (typically Germans).

In systems where kings were in some sense elected or selected by the people the kings could just as easily lose support. Very rarely was there any legitimate notion of impeachment or recall available. But, the people rarely forgot that before his ascension the monarch was really just one of them - 'Primus inter pares' - first among equals.

In systems where monarchs were consecrated by priests, the monarch often, in official terms, served at the pleasure of God, as mediated by the priests. The priests possessed a terrible power, albeit one that could assail the monarch only indirectly. In counterbalance, the monarch often held a very tangible power over the priestly class, yet such power could rarely be wielded in a way acceptable to the containing society. The case of Charlemagne is another helpful illustration of the ambivalence with which kings and priests approached each other. By the time Pope Leo 3 crowned Charlemagne, the king had already established an empire unlike any seen in the west for generations. Depending on interpretation of events - Charlemagne either submitted himself to the authority of the Pope or was 'captured' by the Pope by surprise. In either case, Charlemagne simultaneously gained immensly in legitimacy and was bound with a cord of supernatural strength.

Systems based around inheritance provided a fairly stable model. One of the most dangerous times for any government is during transition from one set of ruler(s) to another. In dynastic systems this transition could typically be foreseen and prepared for, sometimes for decades. The failings of the system are legion - from the hemophiliac Romanovs to the decadance of the Sun King to the idiot kings of the later Merovingian line.

In every form of government there exists a perpetual need for the government to justify itself to the people it rules. In monarchical systems, the legitimacy of the monarch depended in large part on how the monarch ascended to power. This in turn affected the powers and obligations granted to the monarch as well as the way in which succession was handled.

Winter Camping

January 18-20 2008 Winter camping at Manistee
21 mile loop over 2 days
1 night car camping.
1 night in the woods.
6 degrees 1st night
0 degrees next night.
ground: 12-18" of snow
about 4" of snowfall each night.
10-15 knot winds from the West

In the pack:

• 2 man tent:Eureka 2xt
• 2600 cu in Osprey Backpack
• 0 degree Marmot Never summer bag in compression sack
• thermaloft air mattress
• ground cloth
• jetboil with msr 8 oz isobutane standard mix
• hiking poles
• long johns, silk pajama pants, sweatpants, gortex outer shell
• silk long sleeve base layer, wool long sleeve shirt, long sleeve fleece, winter jacket
• 2 pairs of wool socks
• nice toasty hat
• boots
• gloves
• 1 camelback with insulated tube
• 1 nalgene bottle
• pillow bag (fleece lined little bag to stuff things into to make a pillow)
• 1 zippo refillable hand warmer
• 6 chem hand warmers
• water tablets
• matches
• flask with johnny walker (black, but red will do)
• 1 extra stuff sack
• 2 bungee cords
• 1 small grill wire mesh for cooking steaks/dogs
• 4 cigars
• 1 small pot(james carried this)
• 6 ft nylon cord
• watch with light
• food bag with:

• 2 mac & cheese
• beef jerky
• 2 cliff bar
• tropical mix trail mix
• powdered milk
• granola based cereal
• 4 tea bags
• coffee
• jello pudding mix
• tooth brush (British airways mini with paste)

Lessons Learned:

• Don't get out of the sleeping bag! make your food, change your clothes, wash your car, whatever, unless you gotsta gotsta gotsta pee, stay in that damn bag!
• It would have been nice to keep the warmed up water inside the jacket while hiking with me to keep it from freezing.
• don't take off the gloves to manipulate things, especially by the fire, they pick up more and more moisture from the constant freezing and unfreezing.
• don't mess with your boots on the trail, too easy to get snow on your socks which makes for very cold toes.
• use a piece of nylon string to tie the bottom of the gortex shell pants to the boot loops to make a poor man's gaiters, would keep the snow out pretty well.
• when its below 20 degrees, niceties be damned, leave those cigars and steaks at home, its about boiling water for food and warmth, and that's it!
• wrap the hot water bottle up in your spare fleece and put it under your shirt at night, retains warmth even better, and stays on your chest
• bring the boots and fuel into the bag about 3 hours before dawn (at your pee break), the fuel WILL burn at 0 degrees ambient temperature for at least 15 minutes, but the canister needs to be well above freezing
• 1 mac&cheese,4 oz trail mix, 4 oz cereal, 4 oz jerky, 3 cliff bars 2 tea bags / day (plus a lime for scurvy)

Leave it out below 20 degrees:

• cigars
• jello mix
• powdered milk
• coffee
• non insulating fleece
• zippo hand warmer (if its cold enough to need it, you'll never get it working. better for skiing)
• camelback(freezes to easy, not as good as a nalgene bottle to snuggle with at night)
• 2 man tent. not worth leaving anything in the vestabule at these temps.

Work great below 20 degrees:

• tea bags (cover up the taste of ash from heating up water with a fire)
• mac & cheese

Wish i had:

• a nice synthetic vest to keep warm at camp/wrap the head during the windy hike the cheap old navy fleece was worthless
• 1 man tent
• 3rd pair of wool socks.
• extra cliff bar.
• 1 small pot with handle that attaches to outside of pack. just in case you can't get the jetboil to work and need to heat snow over a fire.
• non finger mittens with flip over cover for fingers.
• some way to hold the nalgene bottle inside your jacket. maybe 3 half liters rather than 2 full.
• thermometer. John didn't quite understand the importance of getting the absolute lowest temperature of the night so you can tell your friends how stupid you are. (he measured 7 degrees at 5:30 the last night, but we assume it got about down to 0 degrees by 2:00 AM)
• a miniature nuclear reactor that fit next to my big toe.