tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70942176270133808842024-03-05T23:41:07.593-08:00Conscientious Rebelnathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-40218060365399659762020-02-01T20:55:00.001-08:002020-02-01T20:55:40.346-08:00A Review of The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent.<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ee10ef5e-7fff-f2ef-5f12-b285049b0a39" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Guarded Gate</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Daniel Okrent is also the author of Last Call, the history and implementation of Prohibition. It was a surprisingly engrossing book, meticulous and completely relevant to the topic, so I was very happy to see that he had written a book on two topics which I'm even more interested in. What's even more interesting is his account of how those topics merged early in the 20th century in one of America's darker chapters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his work on Prohibition, Okrent delved into how temperance activists tapped latent racism to boost their case. In this book, he exhaustively (and exhaustingly) documents how the nation's seething nativism and paranoia over the changing population was a problem exaggerated to fit a new scientific solution: eugenics theory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eugenics may seem as arcane as bloodletting to the modern, but it was, like bloodletting, once the cutting edge of biological scientific theorizing. It's father was Sir Francis Galton, one of the many, many descendants of the legendarily brilliant and promiscuous Erasmus Darwin, and a cousin of Charles. Without implying causation and careful not to yoke the evolutionary theory directly to eugenics, the author continues. While he does not assign blame, Okrent does presume that the Darwinian Revolution removed the extant moral opposition of the scientific community to thinking of and consequently treating humans as merely an evolved hierarchy of animal life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To say Galton was a prodigy is as much of an understatement as saying that his ancestor Erasmus was fond of the ladies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He read at age 2, mastered Latin at age 4, quoted Sir Walter Scott often at age 5 and 6 years of age found him reading the Iliad with exceptional comprehension. He was the heir of substantial family fortunes, to which he had full access by the age of 22. But for apparently not one minute of his life, did he recline in the lap of luxury. His curiosity was ravenous and his method for satiating it was obsessive counting. He explained everything, or at least attempted to, with numbers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He counted earthworms after rain, mosquito bites, formed equations for what percentage of an audience was attentive by noting and counting movements. No subject was too general or too specific. He even devoted 3 months to the exploration of what constitutes a proper cup of tea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Galton's American protege, Charles Davenport, was another genius, as were many if not most prominent eugenicists, and many of them came from long established families of wealth and prominence, making their breathtakingly arrogant theories about the benefits of selective breeding perhaps a little more understandable, if not excusable. It never occurred to them to check their privilege.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wikipedia's entry on eugenics states that in its early 20th century iteration, eugenics was promoted as a way to improve "groups of people" (and I would add society in general) while "new (current) eugenics" focuses on improving individuals, i.e. selecting and even altering embryos at the direction of the parents and is therefore not racist in any way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It prompted some head scratching by yours truly on the difference between the individual and the collective. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you separate the goal of improvement of individuals from the goal of improving groups and society? Apparently Davenport could not. It's true that his scientific curiosity was once more objective and, if we might use a characterization that Madison Grant might've, pure. He was, he professed, concerned with the improvement of individuals and did not apply scientific racism to his eugenics study. But as time passed and the passion to make the science a helpful societal tool blossomed, the "betterment of the human race" became paramount and Davenport's studies became a means to an end. His ideological purity was mongrelized and he became an unabashed proponent of "scientific racism."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some proponents of eugenics theory were overtly racist and xenophobic, but not disproportionately considering the age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One tireless advocate for immigration restriction AND eugenics was Henry Cabot Lodge, the patrician stalwart arch-conservative legislator from Massachusetts. By contrast, his cousin, Joe (never Joseph) Lee, who was a dedicated, behind-the-scenes proponent of eugenics and racial purity, was also a Boston school board member, philanthropist, father of the modern school playground and avid reader of Karl Marx. He was a textbook early 20th century progressive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Racism was ubiquitous. It was not 4 decades earlier that slavery was still legal in the US, and even those abolitionists, (also progressives) of the North could not have helped an indulgent sense of having condescended to aid the poor Negro.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, it is not completely clear who co-opted who, or whether there was any co-opting or exploitation of each other at all in the alliance of eugenicists and xenophobes. They appear to have been quite suited to one another and not at all uncomfortable with the relationship. It was probably either mutual exploitation or a hellacious harmonic convergence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The list of American icons who at one time or another, or all of the time, in some cases, expressed stupefying racism, xenophobia and classism is sobering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beginning with Benjamin Franklin, through Ulysses S. Grant, to Booker T Washington, William Penn, the great suffragist Victoria Woodhall, John Scopes (of the Scopes Monkey Trial), Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Maxwell Perkins (the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway), H. Fairfield Osbourne (director of the American Museum of Natural History) and so many other notaries, the list of nativists does considerable damage to the idea that the US was ever in even approximate accord with the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the common cause of xenophobes and genetic planners is striking to me, considering the antipathy between what may be considered the modern incarnations of both anti-immigration sentiment and eugenics. Eugenics, right or wrong, is seen by many as the forerunner of elective abortion. And, in fact, it seems like a fair genealogical conclusion, since Margaret Sanger was a prominent eugenicist, an enthusiastic supporter of Davenport's endeavors and is most well known to us as the founder of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. But modern abortion opponents now are often the same people most likely to oppose immigration. (As they would have it, they are only concerned about illegal immigration, while remaining mostly non-committal on what legal minimums and maximums should be established.) Okrent is careful to note the objections of modern pro-choice advocates who say that if anything, the eugenicists of that era were more comparable to pro-life activists, since pro-lifers typically seek governmental prohibition of abortion or governmental control of "reproductive rights", similar to the forced sterilization policies championed by many eugenicists. But the disregard for human life is common ground that is not so readily ceded by many pro-choice advocates and immigration restriction advocates. There is a shared sense of entitlement. As in, "We are here, so we have a codified right to input into </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who else </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can be here." Or, if you like, "Possession (of life, here and now) is 9/10ths of the law."</span></div>
nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-86804197685101642822020-01-16T05:41:00.001-08:002020-01-16T05:42:26.830-08:00A Review of Coyote America by Dan Flores<br />
<br />
There's a song I like by Western artist Don Edwards.<br />
It begins,<br />
<br />
"Was a cowboy I knew in South Texas<br />
His face was burnt deep by the sun<br />
Part history, part sage, part Mexican<br />
He was there when Pancho Villa was young<br />
He'd tell you a tale of the old days<br />
When the country was wild all around<br />
Sit out under the stars of the milky way<br />
Listen while the coyotes howled<br />
<br />
Now the longhorns are gone<br />
And the drovers are gone<br />
The Comanches are gone<br />
And the outlaw is gone<br />
Geronimo's gone<br />
And Sam Bass is gone<br />
And the lion is gone<br />
And the red wolf is gone<br />
<br />
Then he cursed all the roads and the oilmen<br />
And he cursed the automobile<br />
Said 'This is no place for an hombre like I am<br />
In this new world of asphalt and steel'<br />
Then he looked off some place in the distance<br />
At something only he could see<br />
He said 'All that's left now of the old days<br />
Are these damned old coyotes and me.' "<br />
<br />
The old cowboy would be happy to know, I assume, that not only are the damned old coyotes still around, they are thriving.<br />
Once only found in the Western United States, they are now howling in every state of the union.<br />
And this in spite of, in fact Flores will argue BECAUSE of, almost two centuries of extermination attempts.<br />
Beginning with Lewis and Clark's first encounter with this American icon which Clark dubbed the "prairie wolf", European settlers were first perplexed by the not-quite-wolf but not-quite-fox who seemed to be a little too comfortable around humans.<br />
The perplexity soon enough turned to a loathing that rivals our commonly held hatred for cockroaches.<br />
The coyote was outright declared a target for extinction by the federal government.<br />
Bounties were set, traps were laid, strychnine factories were built. Later, aerial gunning and specifically designed poisons were put into use, dead animal carcasses spiked with trial-and-error vetted toxins.<br />
Millions and millions of coyotes were killed.<br />
<br />
And it was not simply a matter of utility.<br />
Even though there were the inevitable predations that occur when domesticated animals come into direct contact with wild predators, animal scientists in the field even in the late 1800's were discovering by analyzing stomach contents and scat that contrary to conventional wisdom, sheep and cattle did not make up most or even a quarter of the coyote diet. And later, as livestock containment methods and the proliferation of national forests and parks as refuges for coyotes pacified stockmen somewhat, big game hunters, claiming that coyotes were diminishing the elk population and were an existential threat to mule deer were also proven wrong.<br />
But the Great Coyote Wars continued, aided almost from the beginning by good war propaganda.<br />
As settlement of the West continued, the coyote became a symbol of deprivation, cowardice and cunning. Mark Twain, in his charming polemics, gleefully helped a good portion of America unacquainted with the species to hate the coyote with his famous three-page rant in Roughing It. Horace Greeley described it as "a sneaking cowardly little wretch." Edwin Sabin in an Overland Monthly 1938 issue, described it as "contemptible and especially perverse" and "lacking higher morals." And exploring ideas for commercial gain from the killing of coyotes, the Scientific American, in 1920, asserted that although coyotes were not worth the price of the ammunition to shoot them, it was still a patriotic guesture because, "The coyote was the original Bolshevik."<br />
<br />
Even today, there are 500,000 coyotes killed in a year's time, almost one a minute.<br />
And yet, or as Flores has it, as a result, coyotes now stretch from the southern border (and below) to the Yukon and from sea to shining sea. There is now a significant coyote presence in L.A., Chicago, and even Manhattan.<br />
Coyotes excel under persecution.<br />
They possess an autogenic trait that actually increases the size of their litters when they are under stress. Combine this amazing ability with their seemingly preternatural adaptability and a comfort level with humans that seems odd in a wild predator, and it becomes less incredible that patrons spilling out of a bar in Manhattan looked up to see a coyote on the roof, surveying the scene with casual boldness.<br />
<br />
Flores does something else in the book that's a little startling. He insists that a given American's opinion of coyotes is often indicative of their opinions on......politics.<br />
He uses the coyote as a locator of a person's position in the culture war.<br />
And it's not a metaphor.<br />
He claims that liberals tend to respect the coyote, while conservatives hate them. He says asking someone how they feel about coyotes is basically the same thing as asking them how they feel about John Wayne.<br />
The conservative-liberal urban-rural divide is even reflected in how you pronounce the word.<br />
Urban liberals tend to use coyot-ee, with the emphasis on the middle syllable.<br />
Rural conservatives tend to use coyote, with the emphasis on the first syllable.<br />
For what it's worth, I use the rural conservative pronunciation, partly because that's how we said it in Oklahoma (so that part checks out), but also partly because coyot-ee just sounds too cartoonish for obvious reasons.<br />
I don't know if I believe that the coyote issue is as divisive or easily associated with a demographic as war or immigration, but I do recognize that there is some truth in what he is saying that I can corroborate myself. My opinion of predators is significantly different than those of most, or so it seems, of my conservative friends. They seem to view any wild predatory animal as a nuisance to be eradicated so that everything can be tamer. And safer.<br />
At the risk of stretching the point along with Flores, and at the risk of giving anyone the opening to accuse me of reductionism, I have to admit I quickly compared the de facto conservative positions on immigration, drugs and civil liberties and nodded to myself.<br />
<br />
Moving on, in the latter half of the 20th century, conservationists became alarmed at the rapid decline and imminent extinction of the red wolf in the southeast. The Fish and Wildlife Service believed that an ancient distinct species was on the verge of disappearing. Their solution was to gather the remaining survivors in the wild together with all the red wolves in captivity and breed a strong pure host of red wolves to re-release into the wild and hopefully recolonize their "native" habitat. But first they had to test each of the possible studs and brood canines for genetic purity. To their horror, they discovered that the majority of the "wolves" possessed coyote DNA. In fact, many were reddish full-blooded coyotes. In true bridge burning bureaucratic fashion, they destroyed every one of the impure animals, even the zoo animals, much to the dismay of the zoo officials.<br />
But, as it turns out, the science that first declared the red wolf a distinct species was faulty. Most likely, the red wolves were actually a hybrid of coyote and wolf, much like the coywolves now populating many areas where wolf and coyote share hunting grounds. The fumbling incompetence of wildlife management experts in this instance is reminiscent of the heedless arrogance that in the previous century led the US government to support and subsidize the near extinction of the buffalo.<br />
<br />
But maybe the coyote is too much like us for us to ever be completely rid of it.<br />
Flores thinks so.<br />
As a principal deity in the Native American Pantheon, Old Man Coyote seems quite similar to Zeus with a little bit of Loki thrown in.<br />
He is not perpetually exemplary. He's one of those gods that we create in our own image. Which is to say he can be very good and also very bad. That split personality is what makes him like Zeus, along with his ability to appear human, whereas Zeus had the ability to appear animal.<br />
Flores takes an imaginative, almost spiritual look at the coyote and concludes that he is us.<br />
The indigenous peoples have many myths and legends with the coyote as a god, but a very human god. He is the wisest of all, but also often a fool. He is powerful, with sometimes paralyzing weaknesses. He is a trickster, but is constantly being tricked. He is not completely wild, and not completely tame. He'll do what it takes to survive, but often only just that and no more.<br />
Less abstractly, Flores compares the evolution of man with the evolution of the coyote, and pronounces us clueless, if we think we can outmaneuver such a force.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-13072550080487992482019-01-24T11:29:00.000-08:002019-01-24T11:29:04.729-08:00The WindI was in my late 20's.<br />
Devan and I had been married for around 4 years.<br />
I worked two jobs, one full time and one part time. The full time job was the breadwinner. The part time job was the insurance provider and hope of a stabler future.<br />
I worked commercial construction during the day, driving to work in the dark morning, falling asleep at stoplights and often having to park half a mile or more from the job site.<br />
I was a hod-carrier (mason tender) and ran the grout pump every other day or so.<br />
The hopper of the pump received soupy concrete from the trough of the cement truck and vigorously forced the grout up through a 4 inch reinforced rubber hose.<br />
Up on top of a high block wall, I either straddled the wall, walked it or ideally used scaffold walk boards. The concrete laden hose, sometimes several hundred feet long, would retract and thrust with every cycle of the pump, roughly every second, and you had to somehow pad the hose at every contact point with the masonry or scaffolding to prevent a hole from wearing through from the constant friction.<br />
Around 3:30, it was time to shut down for the day and I would jog back to my little Ford Ranger and speed home to get a shower and supper before heading back into town for work at the UPS hub at 5.<br />
From roughly 5-10, I loaded semis with boxes.<br />
When my head hit the pillow, sleep was only a matter of seconds out, surging in to pull me out into an irresistible riptide.<br />
Consequently, I had little time for anything that was non-essential to survival, certainly not introspection.<br />
Sometimes, if you ignore the act of simply breathing long enough, the odd arresting moment when silence falls is all it takes to become suddenly aware of what is sustaining your hyperactivity.<br />
We lived in a cramped townhouse.<br />
I was in the living room taking a rare glance out into the parking lot when a passing breeze animated the leaves of a small ornamental bush in the flower bed and then passed through the closed window into my soul.<br />
Spearheads of ripples moved across my consciousness.<br />
Something was happening to me without my direction or summons.<br />
I don't know which direction the wind came from, or where it blew, but it passed through me, invisible and scentless, only apprehended by the dust it stirred.<br />
Genesis 8:1 is the first usage of the word that we translate into "wind."<br />
But the first reference to wind is in the second verse of the entire Bible.<br />
"The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."<br />
In the previous verse, God who created the heavens and the earth is named Elohim.<br />
In the second verse, we translate "Spirit of God" from the Hebrew "Ruach Elohim".<br />
"Ruach" is one of those never-ending Hebrew gifts.<br />
The most physical definition is simply "wind", but it also means "breath" and, most arrestingly, the "function or expression", elsewhere "personality trait" of a rational being.<br />
It is in the second verse of the Bible that God has a thought. And the hateful placidity of the formless deep shivers in response. "Nothing" births something.<br />
The Cause affects.<br />
A dream is dreamed within a dream.<br />
<br />
In Job 1:19, the wind takes it's form as "blast" or "tempest" and moves upon the house of the children of Job, collapsing the walls and killing them all.<br />
At the end of Job, the sufferer's questions and agony and anger are engulfed and overwhelmed by the voice of God from out of the tempest.<br />
In Mark 39, God held his breath and the Lake of Tiberius was calmed.<br />
David almost certainly heard the wind in the poplars as the sound of marching and went to battle with the Philistines.<br />
Elijah endured the wind that shattered stones and withered the gourd and was finally taken up by it.<br />
In Acts, Ruach Elohim swept through a gathering of the longing faithful and came to live with us.<br />
I was born in Oklahoma, where the wind never stops sweeping down the lane, dehydrating in the summer and relentless in the winter and where I attended a campmeeting where the evangelist recounted the testimony of an equatorial convert upon reaching God at last, "It's like a cool breeze down in my soul.", a metaphor that strikes me randomly on a humid summer day when a breeze falls from the icy heavens and soothes my fever and prickles my skin.<br />
"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it's sound, but you do not know where it came from or where it is going."<br />
<br />
Next time you feel a bitter gale, a driving rain, a hot blast or a cool breeze, remember.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-66045289245265759112018-05-20T11:37:00.000-07:002018-05-20T11:37:56.169-07:00Conscientious RebelI have been in revolt my entire life.<br />
Roughly the first half I spent in rebellion against God. The second half has been a more careful insurrection, against anything I perceive as being wrong, particularly if that wrong is widely accepted and/or taught.<br />
As a child and then as a teenager I was extremely conscientious, even fearful. I was afraid to do anything that in my limited understanding might even possibly be wrong. I walked the line, not out of a desire to do good, but out of mortal dread of the consequences of doing anything wrong. This is not to say that I never did anything that I thought was wrong, but they were "lesser," secret sins. Contrary to Martin Luther's admonition to sin boldly, I sinned timidly, and asked for forgiveness not at all, only occasionally sought a guarantee that I wasn't doing anything that would send me to hell. And while fear of consequences may bring many who lack understanding to a point of reckoning, it is no substitute for forgiveness and living gratefully.<br />
When I was converted, I was scuttled in a bottomless grace; grateful, euphoric and eager to show my love for my Savior.<br />
After a time however, the fearful part of my phsyche reinflated, displacing gratefulness with a cold legalism and I shot back to the surface where lashed a storm that still has not abated.<br />
If a fish is a person who lives on grace, I am a dolphin.<br />
I can only remain submerged in grace for so long until my mammalian lungs burn with the need for the oxygen of real world, merit based reassurance.<br />
I have often joked that the teenage rebellion against the establishment that so many people engage in was also mine to experience, just delayed a couple of decades.<br />
But my rebellion is driven by my conscientiousness. It's not that I look for every opportunity to be set apart, it's that so much of the time, the crowd, the establishment, the status quo is <i>wrong.</i> And it is not sheer coincidence. If an idea or practice is widely accepted, it is often because it holds within it an insidious element that appeals to fallen human nature. In addition to that inherent virus, popularity <i>itself </i>has a corrupting influence. There is a dangerous unity in the pulse of the mob. Even good propositions, such as the Church, can be become unrecognizable powers for evil when left unquestioned.<br />
There is also a deep personality trait that spurs my rebellion.<br />
I don't remember the exact age, but somewhere around 8 years old, I made a self discovery. I was conversing with someone who has also been lost to memory, and was suddenly struck by a realization that I often said yes, nodded or otherwise offered affirmation or at least acceptance of things said with which I did not necessarily agree. It seemed lazy, and weak.<br />
<i>Why am I pressured to go with the flow and, more importantly, why do I give in to the pressure?</i><br />
It's perhaps an unusual thought for an eight year old, but it was and is an integral part of me: the guilt of doing things the easy way. Even at that age, my conscience was overactive, and in charge. Then, as now, I've little doubt that I overcompensated for that perceived weakness. In fact, only a few short weeks later, as I recall, someone asked me why I always had to challenge everything that was said. I have since learned to choose my battles more discriminately, but I am still driven to challenge everything, driven by my conscience to be a rebel.<br />
My Dad, who was also crucially involved in my spiritual development, was influential to my own development of independence. I distinctly remember him recounting a conversation with my Mom, who told him that while she could not say that he was always right, she could definitely say that his thoughts and conclusions were <i>always </i>his own. I took that to heart, particularly since it reinforced my own determination not to be a follower, as difficult as it might be.<br />
And then, as if I needed encouragement, I began reading after Kierkegaard, and was electrified by the following:<br />
"Moreover living as the individual is thought to be the easiest thing of all, and it is the universal that people must be coerced into becoming.<br />
I can share neither this fear nor this opinion, and for the same reason.<br />
No person who has learned that to exist as the individual is the most terrifying thing of all will be afraid of saying it is the greatest."<br />
There is always a danger with being your own man. The danger lies not in a greater likelihood of going wrong than if you were in larger company, but in becoming arrogant. And, while my recalcitrance is a matter of conscience, I cannot deny that I sometimes find a perverse pleasure in being THAT guy. In moderation, it's harmless gratification, but it always bears watching.<br />
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<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-84568905848716673372018-04-02T13:01:00.000-07:002018-04-04T13:16:09.490-07:00What Is That To Thee?Raise your hand if you saw conservatives react to the recent student walkout in protest of mass shootings and in support of gun control by urging us to focus more on the root causes of these tragedies, specifically bullying.<br />
If you're anything like me, your initial reaction was agreement, then mild surprise since the last you might have heard from this particular person on the subject of bullying was that kids these days were just too soft.<br />
There seems to be a pattern in the culture war these days.<br />
Whatever we might call the opposite of the Left, (the Right, conservatism, etc) it is almost obviously being led around by the nose <i>by</i> the Left.<br />
The Left makes a move, the Right reacts.<br />
One of the most jarring examples of this is the overall loyal opposition's response to the many character issues with President Trump; for example, the Stormy Daniels story. Many, conservative, even right wing evangelical responses could almost have been plagiarized word for word from good old southern Democrats defense of Bill Clinton's character issues, with "media" standing in for "right wing" in the phrase "vast right wing conspiracy."<br />
(In fairness, there were those who supported Bill Clinton, considered his infidelity insignificant, who now feel the same about Trump. They seem to feel that character is not something to be considered in a political leader, and they definitely have a point. To expect integrity from power brokers is foolish, but my argument here is with the overwhelming remainder of the population which seems to at least pretend that their chosen champions are not high paid thugs.)<br />
But there is a much larger group who felt deeply that Bill Clinton's liberalism was an assault on traditional American values and that his loose moral character was proof of that assault, who now either completely dismiss the scandal swirling around Trump as a pack of lies, or, more likely, simply see it as insignificant in the big picture.<br />
At any rate, they certainly do not see Trump's character as proof of an assault on traditional values. Many of the same people who cheered the impeachment of President Clinton as a a fit reprimand for his behavior now have apparently no qualms saying that they will continue to stand behind president Trump 100% regardless of his dalliances.<br />
Is this just fighting fire with fire, tit-for-tat, or is the Right being led slowly, unconsciously but surely down the path of moral relativism by the Left?<br />
Another possible example is the Right's subconscious acceptance of the blurring of the gender roles lines. The result of part of the radical feminist agenda that ostensibly wanted to equalize the sexes was to actually lower women to the point that it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to get down in the dirt and mix it up with the boys. While the Right is still more or less insistent that gender is binary and distinct, they seem to have quite willingly accepted that part of the feminist agenda that allows them to fight women the same way they fight men.<br />
Someone may protest that this is some political fragment of the Socratic method, trying to point out hypocrisy or inconsistency, as one conservative mouthpiece used to delight in "illustrating absurdity by being absurd." (And, yes, there is hypocrisy, inconsistency and absurdity in spades on the Left.)<br />
Or perhaps they may even consider it strategic, using the useful parts of the Left's agenda against them.<br />
Still someone else will doubtless say that women have become just as coarse as men and so we must deal with them accordingly. I won't argue that. I will simply point out that they have in fact capitulated on what used to be a key point of traditional values, the ideal of gentlemen placing women on a pedestal (whether or not individual women were actually treated as such.)<br />
In fact, much of the conservative and libertarian single male response to the #metoo movement was downright bitter towards women in general, indicating that a significant portion of the non-left male population is quite willing to accept the reality of a gender war.<br />
The pattern that emerges is one of nothing but reaction.<br />
It is an inherent weakness of conservatism: that of being forced to continually play defense. After all, the aim is to "conserve." When we are relegated to trying to preserve a culture that we feel was better, the wagons will always be in a circle.<br />
While conservatives may recognize that not everything was perfect back in the good ol days, most of them just wonder why things just can't be like they used to be.<br />
But whether or not things were overall better back when, it must be acknowledged that time will never stand still. It carries on ceaselessly and carries society, and culture, along with it.<br />
What to make of this?<br />
The problem is not a new one.<br />
It's one of the fear that "they" will win, while not being certain of what is at stake, and not even certain of who they are, since we have certainly lost track of who we are.<br />
It's one of trends and fighting trends.<br />
It's one of missing the trees for the forest.<br />
It's one of fear at the loss of identity overwhelming the virtue that ever made that identity valuable.<br />
It's one of being too concerned with things out of your control, and making deals with devils you think CAN control things, or at least limit the damage to things until such time as they relinquish control back to you, back to us, the rightful overseers of culture.<br />
<br />
My solution to this problem of losing track of what we are fighting for will come as a surprise to practically no one.<br />
Stop worrying about "we" and "they."<br />
Your concern over the culture has almost certainly distracted you from your greatest concern: yourself and your relationship with the truth.<br />
We tell ourselves every vote counts, but don't seem to realize that our individual adherence to the highest standard we can attain will go a lot farther in preserving what we treasure.<br />
And don't concern yourself when "they" fight dirty, because...<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;">"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;"> Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;">Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;"> And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:......</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif;">Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,</span><br style="font-family: "Linux Libertine", Georgia, Times, serif;" /><span style="font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"> And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!"</span></span><br />
Rudyard Kipling<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "linux libertine" , "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></span>
nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-68696338198673552942018-03-13T11:58:00.000-07:002018-03-13T11:58:16.621-07:00The Individual Christian<span style="font-family: Chronicle SSm A, Chronicle SSm B, serif;">"Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it."</span><br />
-Soren Kierkegaard.<br />
Christianity is harmed by the incessant attempts to yolk it with "us, them, we" or any personal pronoun other than "I".<br />
It invariably leads not to closer brotherhood among believers, but to sectarianism, pride and judgment.<br />
As an individual, a Christian is more likely than most to be humble, peaceful and understanding.<br />
As a collective, or as a demographic, we can tend to be proud (of our Christianity), hostile (to anyone or thing perceived to be hostile to us as Christians) and judgmental (to anyone who does not hold our values).<br />
As the individual Christian, we have a better sense of who we are in relation to world, and to God himself.<br />
As "Christendom", we tend to find safety in numbers, establish insular subcultures, and hide behind our own theologians and teachers.<br />
Christians lose something of the peculiar shame of the Cross when Christianity becomes accepted, respectable, a movement or even, God forbid, official.<br />
We become quite at home in the world, and even begin to claim portions of it as our own. And become quite defensive and even combative when we feel that holy ground is being invaded.<br />
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I have disliked the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" almost from the moment I first heard it. With it's militaristic mustering and calls for spiritual battle, it seemed to echo the trumpets of the ill-fated and advised Crusades of the Middle Ages., However my distaste needed educating and said more about the Christian culture that caused me to misunderstand actual christian militancy than the lyrics themselves.<br />
The culture I'm referring to is the religiously Christian, politically conservative culture. Pairing politics with Christianity is hardly new, but the increasing willingness of one major party to let the other claim it is disturbing, not because politics and religion should go hand in hand (in fact, I intend to argue otherwise) but because Christianity itself is rightly or wrongly being found to be incompatible with progressive political views and reprioritized or outright abandoned. What is more disturbing still is the increasing confidence of that other major party that they are, in fact, the rightful defenders and claimants of Christianity.<br />
It's not that it's not contradictory to be a Christian and support abortion, or that it's not consistent for and incumbent upon a Christian to beg for the life of an unborn child, but that defending innocent life does not contribute to one's own personal Christianity.<br />
It's not that it is consistent with Christianity to be a homosexual activist, but that it is not "Christian" to be a heterosexual.<br />
It's not that an assault upon the traditional family should be ignored, but that it is unnecessary and even unhelpful to claim a mandate from Christ while defending it.<br />
It's not that Christians should not be involved in social causes, but that involvement in such causes should not be understood to make one more of a Christian.<br />
Onward Christian Soldiers, in today's context, could just as easily conjure up images of marshalling to defeat the designs of the Left as images of giving a cup of cold water or forgiveness. The war that a christian fights FOR Jesus is more likely to be against one's own self than against a liberal or a Muslim.<br />
Christianity is subject to a lot of add-ons, and none is as injurious to it's integrity and efficacy as politics/activism.<br />
It takes many different forms, often seemingly contradictory, unless one looks at where the plots were likely hatched.<br />
Years ago I learned about the the damage that well-meaning advocates of social reform had done to Christianity. This particular corruption was given a significant boost by one Charles Sheldon, the author of In His Steps, a work of fiction in which numerous characters began to change the face of their community and eventually the nation by their application of Christian discipleship to their everyday life. All well and good so far as it goes, except that social reform was never exactly the aim of the Cross.<br />
But the movement Sheldon assisted with his well known book took on a significance that can be understood in one way by looking at the rise of Christian socialism via the Social Gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch in following decades. It indirectly influenced, for example, the liberation theology preached by one Rev Jeremiah Wright, if you remember him. Over the years, Sheldon's helpful admonition to ask What Would Jesus Do directly and indirectly became the platform for many political forces that often even stood in opposition to one another.<br />
Christ has been invoked in many good causes, and many bad ones, but there is one in particular that I'm concerned with today.<br />
If I haven't sufficiently made the case that Christ did not come to reform society, then at least maybe I can establish that being little christs is not accomplished by advocacy of American culture as the best vehicle for the preservation of His Gospel.<br />
And yet this is exactly the claim we hear from many Christian conservatives when we question the fairly recent focus on the immigration issue. The immigration issue itself is obviously no new problem, particularly illegal immigration. But the recent obsession with immigration has featured many activists expressing their concerns that even legal immigration is a problem because the influx will change the political makeup of the country.<br />
And that, I've been told by some, is a problem particularly because of the supremacy of Christian American culture. There is apparently a danger that Christianity itself will suffer irreparable damage with the fall from power of, well......Republicans.<br />
There is irony in spades here, along with a misplaced focus on political salvation that borders on idolatry.<br />
And the danger of placing such hope in a political cause should be obvious. But in case it isn't, we can become blind to the faults and limited scope of any cause other than sharing Christ; or if not blind, become comfortable with closing our eyes when spectacular problems appear, and when, as has become the case that the spectacular problems are so many, we are opening and shutting our eyes so rapidly at the troubling issues that we appear to be winking at them.<br />
Christians belong everywhere, but our primary purpose is to carry the Gospel to everyone, not to defend it from being attacked, or to perpetuate our understanding of it by keeping people away from us.<br />
And finally, enjoy fellowship with other Christians.<br />
Help and be helped by other Christians.<br />
But please avoid fortifying Christendom against the onslaught of evil.<br />
After all, we are the invaders.<br />
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nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-58854990392431899672017-10-24T17:19:00.001-07:002017-10-24T17:30:56.259-07:00Boredom is perhaps the environment of hell.<br />
It is similar to Chaos, because it is the state of an unfocused mind.<br />
It is the inverse of the excitement of countless possibilities. It is the despairing certainty that every one of those potentialities will end in disappointment.<br />
Every child has known the horror of boredom, as well as they have known the exasperation of an adult who scolds them for being ungrateful, as any adult would be profess to be profoundly grateful for a moment's peace in which boredom might be a welcome change to busyness.<br />
This is hogwash on the part of the adult; partly because busyness is the unconsciously agreed upon crowning virtue of adulthood and would never be so easily traded for a mess of potted boredom, and partly because even in an adult's "leisure" time, he would be terrified to encounter boredom as he did as a child: that ennui, that dissatisfaction with all things and no remedy for it, not entertainment, nor opiate, nor sleep, nor sex, nor any other stimulation that a grown-up engages in when his mind has reached the end of that ultimate high, the Validation of Work.<br />
Boredom is not quite merely the absence of stimulation, it is a tangible thing: a paralyzing banality that leaves a mind stricken and sometimes in search of renewal in the strangeness of the new and unfamiliar and even unappealing.<br />
If we were created with purpose, there can be few pains equitable to purposelessness.<br />
A child avoids this void in any number of ways, almost all of which are more honest than the ways adults avoid it. The dishonesty of adults in their frantic attempts to escape from boredom is motivated by guilt. An aimless child may be scolded, but an aimless adult is judged, and pitied.<br />
Equating boredom with damnation may seem hyperbolic, but only if you have forgotten what boredom is, and think of it as free time when no one expects anything of you.<br />
It is the opposite of freedom.<br />
It is the state of mind so bereft of the excitement of possibility that it imprisons itself. And self imprisonment is the most hopeless of all jails.<br />
Kierkegaard said Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, thus pointing out the silver lining back of the cloud of the Unknown.<br />
The bleakness of Boredom's cloud is the certainty that a distant star has exploded somewhere in the universe that will at last drag every ounce of meaning across it's event horizon.<br />
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<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-57442813742355166812017-08-27T19:01:00.000-07:002017-08-29T10:16:23.404-07:00Greatest FearLike the white tail of a fleeing doe is caught in the corner of a headlight beam, there is a fear, at odd intervals, that crosses my mind, almost gone before I recognize it.<br />
"What if I, in spite of everything and of all people, should become an atheist?"<br />
It's an old dread, the Fear of No God, the Realization of Nothing, that first stole over me in a Christian bookstore at the age of 17.<br />
I had recently come to know God, important to note since prior to that introduction, my greatest fear was that He DID exist.<br />
I must be unwittingly bound to consider the worst. In everyday matters, I rarely deal in worst case scenarios, because that extreme perpetually beats on the walls of my lowest mental dungeon. Consciously, it's warden makes no admission of those muted howls.<br />
But the fear of nothing had it's humble beginnings in my earliest remembered nightmares, which featured exceedingly common sights, such as the the fabric of my blanket, in sudden and inexplicable dream like fashion, growing very, very large. Awakened by my own screams, I could never explain why non threatening, inanimate objects became sinister when enlarged. It was much later when I realized that it was not the size of the objects, but it's implication to MY size. Which was, obviously, that I was really very small and growing smaller (as in the dream I always was frightened awake while the thing was yet growing) and, if left alone, I would surely fade at last into nothing.<br />
In Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, the protagonist, Gabriel Syme, faces a similar fear when meeting Sunday, a God type.<br />
"The form it took was a childish and yet hateful fancy. As he walked across the inner room towards the balcony, the large face of Sunday grew larger and larger; and Syme was gripped with a fear that when he was quite close the face would be too big to be possible, and that he would scream aloud. He remembered that as a child he would not look at the mask of Memnon in the British Museum, because it was a face, and so large."<br />
The fear of a man who does not know God is that God's greatness will diminish himself and that the self opposed to God will never cease shrinking.<br />
My young nightmares are troubling because I was so young and still under the protection of Adamic innocence. Syme was a grown man and thus seemingly responsible for his unfamiliarity with God. But Syme was also a fictional character, representative of the yet innocently ignorant child: a child under God's protection is not the same as one who has eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and been bought back.<br />
But with the fear of diminution, of irrelevance, there is something in common with the choice not to believe in something greater than the self.<br />
Nietzsche speaks: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looks. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?"<br />
Nietzsche was as terrifyingly honest as an atheist may be, grappling with the stygian fear of causeless effect, of meaningless existence. Yet, as honest as an atheist may be, he still does not recognize how deep the abyss is that stares into his soul, for though he says that "Hope, in reality, is the greatest of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.", he also insists that although "To live is to suffer," still, "to survive is to find meaning in the suffering."<br />
Hope, then, is evil because it is false and yet meaning is still attainable. Such a titanically irreconcilable statement is understandable when you begin to understand that there is no such creature as a living nihilist. True nihilists are far more rare than Scotsmen of the same fidelity, for all true nihilists are dead, and by their own hand.<br />
It is my personal belief that your greatest fear must stand as the gainsaying of your chosen purpose. Therefore, I believe that nihilists must somehow find comfort in utter meaninglessness, and be really terrified by meaning and purpose.<br />
Now that I know God, and am found in Him, the fear that He does not exist is also the fear that the self I surrendered to Him will also cease to exist. In that fearful fancy, some dim and distant star is imploded which will quickly drag every ounce of meaning across it's event horizon.<br />
C.S. Lewis imagined that Hell is a very confined space. In The Great Divorce, an inhabitant of Heaven explains the geography of Hell. "All<span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -30px;"> Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World."</span><br />
As small as it is, it continues to shrink; a very intuitive speculation, corresponding conversely with Hubble's Law. Listen to the visitor from Hell's objection and the citizen of Heaven's response<br />
<span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -30px;">"It seems large enough when you are in it, sir."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -30px;">"And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule'"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -30px;">Consider then the horror of being trapped in oneself, in one's Hell, the fate of continuing to shrink, but never to cease.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-indent: -30px;">That is the fear that I face, that love has not yet cast out.</span><br />
Logically, if God does not exist, the fear of Hell should disappear along with it. And yet, the fear persists.<br />
Cessation, I fear, is the greatest myth of them all.<br />
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"He had turned his eyes so as to see suddenly the great face of Sunday, which wore a strange smile. "Have you," he cried in a dreadful voice, "have you ever suffered?" As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size, grew larger than the colossal mask of Memnon, which had made him scream as a child. It grew larger and larger, filling the whole sky; then everything went black. Only in the blackness it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text that he had heard somewhere, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?"<br />
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<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-89747497228332521012017-05-25T19:16:00.001-07:002018-09-28T17:45:47.031-07:00A Plain Account Of MyselfThe Christian heroism (and perhaps it is rarely to be seen) is to venture wholly to be oneself, as an individual man, this definite individual man, alone before the face of God, alone in this tremendous exertion and this tremendous responsibility...<br />
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Soren Kierkegaard<br />
Preface to Sickness Unto Death<br />
<br />
A good part of my contemplative beard stroking has had to do with the objectivity of truth. In an age where the sides in moral disputes are often picked according to one's political affiliations and favorite decades, the lines drawn up hard based upon whether you prefer the 1950's (or any era prior to that) or the dizzying contemporaneity of the last second, it seems that so much of what we say we <i>believe</i> is either rooted merely in the discomfort with change or the impatience with inertia.<br />
Conservatism being more often the champion of what is supposed to be Christian values (indeed, the two designations have become almost an inseperable demographical duo), it has leaned hard on the objectivity of truth; as have I.<br />
It has been and is still important to me to have a fixed point of reference, without which one must wander with the predictable aimlessness of a snowflake in search of the ground on a very windy day.<br />
With it, one may, probably will, still wander but at least knows it came from above and is headed for below.<br />
I have often taken issue with American christian conservatism, partly for being intractable, nationalistic, xenophobic, authoritarian and partly for being too much like the moral relativists they claim to oppose, especially when justification is needed for a compromise.<br />
But as it is presumed that I as a Christian must hold more in common with conservatism than liberalism, in the popularly slightly erroneous definition of the terms, I accept that presumption for a jumping off point.<br />
There is such a thing as absolute truth that is objectively true. God, in fact, stands as the Absolute Objective Truth. God has many attributes, but all of them are shot completely through with a truth that ultimately cannot be adjusted, not to say that it will be completely attained. In fact, it won't, thus the scriptural apologetic His ways are past our finding out.<br />
In hoisting the banner of objective truth, it may be supposed that I would find <i>subjective </i>truth to be the gospel of the Adversary. What is supposed, however, is not completely accurate.<br />
I have referred to a fixed point of reference.<br />
The importance of this monolith is found not only in the fact that it doesn't move, but also in the fact that due to its immobility, by it we know where we are. I may be on one side, you on the other, coloring our perception of course, but more importantly for my purposes here, casting each one of us in a unique relationship to it.<br />
I have also referred to snowflakes. Quite apart from the current perjorative sense in which it's generally meant, I would like to take from this comparison the one-in-an-existence distinction that snowflakes enjoy. <br />
Every last one is distinctive, bearing the signature of divine design.<br />
As do we.<br />
Bearing these distinctions in mind should make us appreciate the unique position in which every one of us stands in relation to the absolute.<br />
There are several aphorisms that apply: Be your own man, Think for yourself, Don't be a follower.<br />
My aim in life is this: To take all responsibility for myself <i>upon</i> myself.<br />
No Christian would dispute that at the final Judgement, there will be no one to advocate for you before God, unless of course, you have chosen to be represented by Christ, which will entail holding nothing back from your Lawyer. In exchange for His representation, He asks that you stand in integrity before Him, so that He may plead your case unabashed to His Father.<br />
You must give an account of yourself.<br />
To do so, you must shoulder an enormous responsibility.<br />
<i>Think and believe for yourself, recognizing what a grave concern it is, while recognizing that not thinking and believing for yourself is a sin.</i><br />
Here is where I begin to differ from conservatism. It's in the term itself. Taken literally, it is to "conserve" what is reckoned to be good and beneficial to society. The "good and the beneficial" is often, almost always, in fact, embedded in tradition, in creeds, and in the wisdom inherited from the previous generations.<br />
<i>But, </i>the problem anyone faces when conserving is the problem of stagnation and rot. Wisdom can't really be inherited. Wisdom is subject to a 90+% inheritance tax. It does not transfer from parent to child. Customs, ideals and traditions are tax free and even times accrue interest.<br />
Wisdom is manna from Heaven, and we all remember what happened when proactive Israelites tried to conserve leftovers.<br />
There is also a sense in which conservation can contribute to the laziness and irresponsibility of consecutive generations. There is a good comparison to be drawn here between trust fund babies and second, third, fourth and so on generations of a movement. A loving parent will have to fight the temptation to cushion the life of the child. A loving parent <em>knows </em>that wisdom is self-activated. Telling your progeny to do this, and not do that, to avoid mistakes and heartache is as natural, and helpful as a passenger who knows where the destination is telling the driver what turns to make. It will get you there once, but if the driver has not driven it himself, looking for landmarks and orientating himself, he will likely never find it again.<br />
Much has been said by more learned and familiar men than I about Rene Descartes, with some vanguards of Western Christianity even declaring that the delicate philosopher introduced a virus into that institution.<br />
But there is a courage in what he did that I can't help but admire. He burned down the suppositional structure of epistemology and sifted through the ashes until he found the indestructible grain of existence.<br />
A man must have belief, before all.<br />
Belief in <em>something </em>precedes all logic, as a foundation underlies a structure.<br />
That belief itself must be <em>personally</em> attained and attested.<br />
How easy it would be, even under the most severe and technically legalistic system, to lay the responsibilities for oneself upon another. Slavery is a comfort to those who fear anxiety as the dizziness of freedom, to paraphrase Kierkegaard. <br />
Freedom is euphoria only if a man chooses to be free. If a man is lazy, freedom is a burden far more ponderous than chains.<br />
"Free thinking" has often been derided as irresponsible and gratuitous. It has been maligned as a way for a heretic or a fool to justify his heresy or his foolishness. And, it often is.<br />
But truth shows her paradoxical colors here, as in all things worthwhile. "Free thinking" can be a way astray, but it is the ONLY way to the Truth.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-86165279696621138542017-04-22T09:05:00.000-07:002017-04-22T09:05:35.457-07:00UnsafeI'm going to make a suggestion to potential readers that I really hope you will take seriously. If you are a person who has a generally positive outlook on life, a person who doesn't have to try to find the good in things, a person who sees life as good with a few hiccups, I would suggest you not read this. There are a couple of reasons. The first is that you may entirely misunderstand me and begin regarding me as a malcontent. The second is that it will likely be a waste of time for you. In suggesting that you pass on this one, I am not suggesting that you are wrong, or naive. In fact, it could be that you have life figured out while I'm still hopelessly befuddled. You can read this first sentence, and then see what I mean, and decide for yourself whether to continue.<br />
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"To think unimpeded and remain optimistic is not possible. Let a man face facts as they really are, and pessimism is the only logical conclusion."<br />
"Once grief touches a man he is full of reaction, he says spiteful things because he is hurt, but in the end grief leads a man to the right point of view: that the basis of things is tragic."<br />
Oswald Chambers<br />
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I offer this scenario. Someone, be it a KGB agent in a gulag, a confused kid in a high school in Columbine, or a run of the mill militant atheist, places a gun to my head and says "Renounce your faith in Jesus Christ or die now." I would not hesitate. If there were no reasoning with the threat, or possibility of disarming him, I would say "Absolutely not. If that is the way of things with no third choice, then kindly be swift and spatter brain matter on yon wall."<br />
But suppose the threatener asks a second question, specifically "Why? Why do you choose to die instead of renounce your faith in Jesus Christ?"<br />
I would answer, quite simply, "Because God sent his Son to die to save me from my sin and the penalty of it."<br />
Supposing again, for the sake of my point, that the agent of death poses a third question. Perhaps he's genuinely curious, or perhaps he's a sadist, denying my pathetic request to do his deed quickly.<br />
"Let me ask you this. You say you choose to die within the confines of the two choices I have given you because God sent his Son as an act of Mercy to save you from your sin and the penalty of it. I would ask you, as the holder of the gun, if you could lay aside (as Chambers and the author of Ecclesiastes did) that one event. That one cataclysm that you did not, in fact, witness for yourself, and only believe happened, I ask you to disregard as I ask this third question. I ask you, in your experience as a human, with the things that you have learned, the experiences you have had, the sights that you've seen, the unpleasantness you've suffered, the things you have seen those you love and the world at large go through, in this context alone, would you say that God is kind? Would you say that He is gentle? Would you say, as the Scriptures say, that He is tender?"<br />
My answer would once again be quickly forthcoming "What are you, crazy? Of COURSE not. If I must base my answer on my experiential observational life, I tell you that God is less kind gentle and tender than yourself with a loaded gun at my head."<br />
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(Optimist, if you're still reading, you were warned.)<br />
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After all, what have I observed? I was born causing great pain to my mother. My memories of childhood are depressed and lonely. I married a woman who underwent horrific childhood trauma and still suffers from it today. I have a chronic disease and a stressful means of paying my bills. But enough about me. Every day, children are abused, the weak are exploited and tortured, sickness and disease ravages millions, famine is rampant, demigods rain terror and death down from the skies and erupt it from the earth. Sickness of the mind tortures many, leading to lives of quiet desperation, loud desperation, and suicide.<br />
"What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted....and in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain."<br />
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Chambers says that the root of things is tragic, the ecclesiastical preacher says that life itself is vanity.<br />
More and more, the question becomes not why would I choose to die, but why would I choose to live?<br />
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As I grow older, there is an excerpt from a children's book that becomes sadder, more relevant, and paradoxically more hopeful.<br />
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are shipped off to the English countryside to escape the incessant German bombing of London, while Mom stays behind in the danger zone and Dad fights in the War. In the expansive manor, there sits a wardrobe which temperamentally allows access to a magical world the inhabitants call Narnia. After some time in Narnia, the children are given to understand the way things stand. Narnia is under the control of an evil tyrant. But there are a faithful few who eagerly anticipate deliverance from a person named Aslan, who will depose the tyrant and restore the land. So far, so good. But then it is somewhat casually mentioned that "Aslan" is, in fact, a lion.<br />
Susan voices an immediate concern that must be on all of their minds, with the possible exception of the childlike and credulous Lucy.<br />
"Is he quite safe?"<br />
The startled Beaver's response is the lifeblood of my middle aged faith.<br />
If I may paraphrase, "Safe?! .....................Are you quite mad? What did I just say? I told you, He. Is. A. Lion! Of COURSE he isn't safe!!!!"<br />
A lion is a man eating beast, a cunning hunter, a savage and mercurial killer.<br />
What Beaver has just told them has terrifying implications.<br />
Implications such as: this "Savior" could fasten his massive jaws around your throat and end your existence. He could tear you limb from limb and eat your flesh while you still breathe. He could toy with you endlessly, allowing bursts of false hope, only to dash them with his corralling roar.<br />
More to the point, given the difference in perception between a human, a Narnian and this Lion, even his benevolence will likely be inscrutable. His offer of life will seem sadistic and controlling. His very nature will be to us savage, brutal, manipulative, narcissistic and unpredictable. His very helping paws have claws in them. His voice issues from between fangs.<br />
So, at this point, I imagine Peter and Susan are thinking, "Yeah, no. The land is under siege by a cruel dictator and you're telling us our only hope is a killing machine. We can just go back to the lamp post, walk through the wardrobe and be done with it. Oh, wait. England is about to be overrun by the enemy. Well, this is just bloody fantastic.<br />
Lion or Hitler? Maybe we should just flip a coin!"<br />
Of course, you know what Beaver says next.<br />
His next sentence is quite possibly the most contradictory statement possible given his previous utterance of "He's a LION, course he isn't SAFE!"<br />
But.................................. He's good."<br />
What?!<br />
He's good?!<br />
Yes, He's good. To my finite understanding, He is beyond finding out. He is a cosmic sadist, a cold and distant ultimatum, an Entity that knows me intimately and yet allows cruel things to happen to me.<br />
To my faith, He is goodness that is so beyond my comprehension of goodness, kindness that outstrips the kindest human I've ever known, gentleness and tenderness that would make the most awestruck, devoted mother a faithless, abusive caretaker.<br />
Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-20260450580592505052017-01-21T17:55:00.003-08:002017-01-23T18:21:30.665-08:00Something I'm working onKenny had always wondered if he would wake up if someone broke into the house at night.<br />
Or during the day.<br />
He never considered the housebreaker might sit down at the edge of his bed and gently shake him awake.<br />
His first thought was that he was sick and someone was here to help him. That was why he didn't reach for the Springfield XD 9 mm that hung on a nail above the nightstand.<br />
He couldn't remember how, or if, his last trip had ended. <br />
Was he in the hospital?<br />
No. His blue acrylic throw with the huge horse was wound tightly around his hips and the familiar blue nightlight glowed from the bathroom.<br />
His first impression of the man seated on the edge of his bed was of a caretaker with a bedside manner, perched lightly so as not to disturb the patient, perhaps to take a temperature, or administer medicine; very calm and reassuring. <br />
Kenny lay still, his eyes half open, waiting for the dream to end, or the memory to come back...<br />
It started to seem odd that the man remained silent, his gaze narrow and expectant, his left hand on his left thigh, his right on his right hip.<br />
Seconds passed, and clarity began to dissipate the confusion in Kenny's sleep numbed mind, but with the clarity came a different level of confusion, and with that confusing clarity came fear.<br />
As the last bit of sleep paralysis faded from his mind like breath from glass, the alarm must have flashed in his gray eyes. <br />
For before his triceps could even begin to tighten to lift himself to a less compromising position, the housebreaker shook his head slightly, just a barely perceptible twist: a warning.<br />
But it was too late. Kenny's reflexes had reached his brain, and the recently awakened organ was not fast enough on the turnaround. He couldn't stop it any more than he could open his eyes while sneezing. The man moved. It didn't seem as if his movement was sufficient to cause the shocking impact in Kenny's throat, but Kenny's arms flailed to his throat. His mouth opened in a simultaneous attempt at gagging and screaming, but he could do neither.<br />
He lay flat on his back again, mouth opening and closing. Finally, air rasped through his larynx in a shocking groan He retched, dry heaving, then bile filled his mouth. The convulsions brought no response from the housebreaker. Kenny rolled slowly to his side, and raw, burning bile dripped from his mouth. He gagged and spit again. He stayed on his side, his mind stumbling through a list of very limited options. <br />
He rolled his eyes upward. The Springfield was gone. He was in no position to use his feet to kick. The blue horse blanket was tangled around his legs.<br />
The man let him lay that way for some time.<br />
Kenny finally rolled onto his back.<br />
The man spoke.<br />
"Kenny, you are about to die."<br />
Kenny exploded into a useless flurry of arms and legs but stopped when he found the barrel of a revolver somehow inserted into his mouth.<br />
As Kenny fought to control his instincts, the man removed the barrel and placed it firmly on his lip just under his nose.<br />
He continued, "There is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it. Every man dies, mot never see it coming. But you will. And it is a <em>gift."</em><br />
Tears fled from Kenny's eyes, sobs surged against clenched teeth.<br />
"I'll give you a minute to accept it. Don't struggle or you wont know the exact instant. You won't be ready..."<br />
Kenny lay still, his mind exploding in supernovas of desperate confusion. There was nothing rational to do, so his mind began to consider the irrational. The man shook his head. "Don't. Please. For your own sake"<br />
Kenny's mouth opened, silent sobs escaping, shaking his body.<br />
"WHY?!"<br />
The man nodded. "That's it. Accept it. And I'll tell you why."<br />
He slowly reached in to his left pocket and withdrew a pocket watch. Opening it, he laid it on the night stand, with the clock face facing them.<br />
"Look at the watch."<br />
Kenny looked. It was a simple brass case with a Roman numeral dial There was an inscription on the upper side. <em># 35 33 34.</em><br />
Then, the man reached into his shirt pocket and took out a curling wallet size photo. With a slightly tremulous hand, he held it inches from Kenny's face. <br />
Recognition was instantaneous, and Kenny was fighting for his life again. His left arm lashed out and was blocked but he used the opposing force to shove himself to the other side of the bed, rolling off the side, and scrambling to his feet, fighting loose of the blanket. He crashed into the bathroom doorjamb, Legs churning, he pulled himself upright and lunged toward the doorway that led out into the living area, but the bed slammed into his shins, pinning him against the wall next to the closet.<br />
The man stared across the bed, the revolver held low but steady in his right, the photo still in his left. He shook it slightly, urging Kenny to look at it again.<br />
"You are about to die, Kenny. There is absolutely nothing you can do to change that. I just want to give you a chance to die the right way. When you're ready. Are you going to accept it, or do I just shoot you now?:<br />
The look in the man's eyes was surreal. Concern was evident, even poignant. It was as if he simply had no choice, and was being as considerate as possible. <br />
Kenny said nothing, and didn't move. <br />
The man laid the photo face up on the bed between them. With the gun still held steady, he bent and retrieved the watch where it had landed on the floor. He laid it beside the photo.<br />
"When the second hand reaches 12, you'll have exactly 5 minutes. During that 5 minutes, I want you to think about what is going to be happening when that second hand is on the other side of 12 after the five minutes is up."<br />
Kenny stared, uncomprehending.<br />
"Don't say anything. Don't talk. It will distract you from your thinking. Think about whether you believe in life after death. You have five minutes, starting............now."<br />
Kenny spent the first 30 seconds still considering a method of escape. Once again, the man seemed possessed of a preternatural knowledge of his thoughts. <br />
"I'm telling you, Kenny, that you will die. Any attempt to escape will only cut your life shorter."<br />
Kenny began to sob again. The man fell silent.<br />
Thoughts of hellfire as long rejected as thoughts of hearing the ocean roar in a seashell, he frantically tried to focus on. It hadn't seemed likely for such a long time, but.....now, he was being forced to consider a practical impossibility. Could there exist the smallest chance that seconds after the bullet crashed into his brain, he would still exist, that his mind, his........soul, yes, soul would still be alive, would be.....somewhere. <br />
Kenny was not a proud man, not even stubborn really, and he began to accept the idea quickly. But then, he wondered frantically, would he just be dead if he refused to accept the enormous possibility? If he accepted it, there might be a reward, but if he refused, mightn't he just be dead? Cease to exist?<br />
You could live forever, but you could only die once. If there were hellfire, wouldn't he just be burned alive and then be dead? <br />
Now he looked at the clock. Three minutes had passed.<br />
This wasn't fair. No one could answer the biggest question of their lives in five minutes with a gun pointed at their head.<br />
The man spoke again, softly. "If you're right, then you will simply die and never feel anything again. But, if you're wrong......"<br />
The new wrinkle threw a fevered desperation into Kenny's tortured mind. Only seconds longer did his wagering continue, before he threw over any idea that did not encourage him to play it as safe as possible. He began to beg, aloud, for his soul's destiny. Swearing, sweating, shaking, sobbing, he promised the Man Upstairs that he wassins, his freaking sins, his, anything he did that God didn't like, and that if he were to live, he would never do anything again that God didn't like. He would pray all the time and read the Bible through and go to church and- "OH GOD I SWEAR IT!!! I SWEAR ON THE BIBLE, ON MY MAMA'S GRAVE, ON MY LIFE, I SWEAR!!nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-48425603514693426352016-12-04T13:33:00.000-08:002016-12-04T13:33:51.241-08:00Letter From Kappus<div class="mail-message expanded" id="m14314" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
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If you've read Rilke's famous letters to Kappus, a year or so ago, my cousin Blake Hunt messaged me and suggested a writing exercise for both of us: a hypothetical letter FROM Kappus to Rilke, in particular the letter preceding Rilke's most well known sixth letter to Kappus.</div>
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The first letter you'll read is Rilke's actual sixth letter and then you'll read what I imagine prompted Rilke to write his stunning sixth letter.</div>
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"To Franz Xaver Kappus</div>
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Rome, December 23, 1903 </div>
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My dear Mr. Kappus, </div>
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you should not be without a greeting from me when Christmas and if you, in the midst of the feast, your loneliness heavier wear than usual. But if you then realize that it is big, so you can look at its ; For what (so you ask yourself) would be a solitude that would not be great; there is only a solitude, and which is large and is not easy to wear, and there are almost all the hours because it would like to exchange it for any more banal and cheap commonality against the appearance of a low compliance with the second best, With the most unworthy... But perhaps these are just the hours when loneliness grows; For their growth is painful as the growth of the boys, and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not make you mad. What is necessary is only this: solitude, great inner solitude. Walking in and not meeting anyone for a long time - that must be achieved. Being lonely as a child was lonely as the grownups wandered around with things that seemed important and great because the big ones looked so busy and because they did not understand anything about their actions. </div>
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And if one day one realizes that their occupations are pathetic, their occupations are frozen, and are no longer connected with life, then why not look more like a child than upon a foreigner, out of the depths of their own world, Own loneliness, which is work itself and rank and profession? Why would a child want to exchange wise, non-understanding, against defenses and contempt, since non-understanding is aloneness, defense and contempt, but participation in what one wants to divorce with these means. </div>
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Think, dear Lord, of the world that you carry within yourself, and call this thinking as you please; It may be a reminder of one's own childhood or longing for one's own future, but be attentive to what is rising in you, and set it above all that you observe. Your inner life is worthy of all your love, you have to work somehow and not lose too much time and too much courage to clarify your attitude to the people. Who says you have one at all? </div>
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I know your profession is hard and full of contradiction to you, and I foresaw your complaint and knew that it would come. Now it has come, I can not soothe you, I can only advise you to survive, if not all professions are so full of claims, full of enmity towards the individual, so to speak, with the hatred of those who are dumb and grumpy The sober duty. The state in which you must now live is no more burdened with conventions, prejudices, and errors than all the other classes, and if there are some who show greater freedom, there is no one who is far in himself And spacious and related to the great things that make up real life. Only the individual who is lonely is placed as a thing under the deep laws, and when one goes out into the morning that raises, or looks out into the evening, which is full event, and when he feels what is happening, So all the standings fall from him, as from a dead man, even though he stands in the midst of pure life. What you, dear Mr. Kappus, should now learn as an officer, you would have felt the same in each of the existing occupations, and even if you had been looking for easy and independent contact with society alone, Have been spared. </div>
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It is so everywhere; But that is no reason for fear or sadness; If there is no common ground between people and you, try to be close to the things you will not leave; Nor are there the nights, nor the winds that go through the trees, and over many lands; Nor among the things and among the beasts are all the events of which you are allowed to participate; And the children are still as you were as a child, so sad and happy, -and if you think of your childhood, then live again among them, among the solitary children, and the adults are nothing, and have their dignity No value."</div>
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My imaginary letter from Kappus</div>
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The book was returned to me, in a state that suggests it was serving as a riser for some large, animated child clad in exceedingly coarse cloth. As to your sentiments regarding the Italian mail service, I can testify to a similar level of Austrian inefficiency. In Verne's wildest conjuring, might not he have created a method of correspondence that did not rely upon disinterested mortals.</div>
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This new station of mine makes a mockery of the romance of the soldier. The idea that there can be anything poetic about the life of a soldier is either proof of the skill of certain writers and bards or of the willingness of so many readers and hearers to be so misled. The routine is destructive to the very ambition that led me to seek out this particular vocation in hopes it would be favorable to finding myself while it attended my material needs. The shock of the unfamiliarity that was at first so invigorating has dulled now that I discover how quickly everything becomes contemptuously familiar. I have at least though realized some success in my quest to quiet my mind. But I am finding even that quietness discomforting.</div>
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For I am finding the solitude you value so highly a burden. I realized sometime last week that I was thinking of solitude as an end in itself, despite my best intentions. It's very difficult not to romanticize solitude, in the brooding light of the lonely surface of the deep before the Spirit of God began to trouble it. And perhaps that is more appropriate than I realize. For I am finding solitude anything but an end. It is instead the most restless place I've ever been, a void very like the one which languished for untold eons before God Himself, in all His arbitrariness, chose to disturb the hateful placidity at a time of His own inscrutable choosing. I can recognize the value of this existence only as a forge, the minutes falling like the hammer, sleep as the cooling sand pit.Although I see nothing taking shape, (indeed, my mind feels like less of a useful tool all the time, my soul seems at times to be molten) and my faith in your faith and even my doleful conviction that hardship must be useful, if only as a foil for ease, is being beaten out, day after day, with no sign of being re-forged. I fear this lonely crucible of time will find out in me a worthless piece of ore, a slab of slag with a fatal flaw, and that I shall be cast aside or at last beaten into nothing, a final shower of sparks that flies up and fades down and leaves the smith with empty tongs.</div>
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This disappointment is all the more bitter, as I have always intuited that if I could escape once more to the starkness of childhood, where everything fell easily into it's category, where even exceptions reinforced the rule. I accepted things with an assurance I am sickened to now suspect as mere complete credulity-the emptiness that gnaws like acute hunger at the realization that home was an illusion .God was more than just a given. I swear that he spoke to my child's mind. I swear it by all that I know to be true. But I have lost him. I have lost him to a confusing melee of facts. I know that if God exists, he cannot be the simple God Always On My Side that I felt as a child. That God has too much against him, too many inconsistencies blindingly obvious to the powers of observation that he ostensibly gave me, and he is far too weak to stand to be crucified by the logic with which he constructed my mind. Is memory so false, or do humans simply cease one mode of existence before passing into another. (Does a larvae really die instead of transforming?)</div>
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I can tell you that not a single foundational stone of my childhood is unmoved. Nothing is the same. I have sought that singleness of purpose, even trying to forget myself. I know that I am an exceptionally self aware person, and have no reason to doubt the charitable when they say that the key to happiness is self forgot. I have tried to believe that the increasing awareness of the world around me and my exact relation to everyone in it was, in reality, itself an illusion. That manhood had brought a sort of fever to my soul, clouding vision and populating the world with things that weren't really there.</div>
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But in the dark silence, the solitude is only loneliness. The spectres of doubt refuse to dissolve, and I am accompanied, always, by what I hope is fear of the darkness but dread is nothing.</div>
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nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-17782788257169044152016-11-27T07:18:00.000-08:002016-11-27T07:18:02.577-08:00<h2 class="date-header" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: #bbbbbb; color: white; letter-spacing: 3px; margin: 0px -10px; padding: 0.1em 10px;">Monday, December 21, 2009</span></h2>
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The Darkest Night of the Year</h3>
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There are plenty of people around who will be happy to tell you the celebration of Christmas is a farce, rooted in pagan rituals and bedecked with all sorts of trappings of non-Christian customs; Christmas tree, evergreen wreaths, Santa Claus.<br />
FYI, the Christmas tree custom is said to have been derived from pagan tree worship. I wasn't surprised to learn this because ever since I was a little tyke, I have felt an irresistible urge to genuflect every time I passed the lighted tree.<br />
The evergreen wreaths and boughs have a similar origin, and Santa Claus, well, now he's something else altogether.<br />
Old Saint Nick, we call him.<br />
Well, of course you know that "Old Nick" is another name for Satan.<br />
There you go.<br />
Christmas is a big tree-hugging orgy culminating in a midnight visit from the devil himself, who breaks character by <em>giving</em> things rather than taking them and inexplicably drops down the chimney instead of rising from the frozen ninth circle of hell.<br />
(Wait, the <em>frozen </em>ninth circle . . . . cold, North Pole, I've found another connection! And you have the striking, eerie similarity between "ninth" and "north." In fact, you only need interchange two letters to reach the same spelling.)<br />
And the crowning glory of the 25th of December haters is the very date itself.<br />
December 21st marks the winter solstice, a day that has held such significance for so many non-Christian cultures that I couldn't possibly name all the different rites and feasts. Essentially, it has to do with Dec. 21 or 22 being the shortest day of the year, and the turning point for lengthening days. Stonehenge, Sun gods and some ancient Greek festival dubbed "Festival of the Wild Women," all figure in, among many, many other pagan icons.<br />
So, I say, what a glorious wonderful day to celebrate the earth-bound birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.<br />
In the midst of all the secular and even satanic ritualistic high days, December 25th sets a holy fire burning, raining light down like a certain mysterious "conjunction of planets" over 2000 years ago.<br />
Beset like the oppressed Jews under Roman rule, we struggle here in the darkest night, the longest eclipse we can remember, longing for the coming of our Redeemer.<br />
And in the middle of the darkness a spark is struck, and suddenly, the darkness is only a foil for that beautiful, blinding fire that grows and pulsates and will one day consume the whole new earth with it's brilliance.<br />
"-and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last." said nephew Fred "So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle!"<br />
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.<br />
"And a Happy New Year!"</div>
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The Things Which Are Not</h3>
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Darkness, because daylight hides the unknown.<br />
The moon, because the sun cannot be looked upon.<br />
The worst, because the best is yet a lie.<br />
The sigh, because the song will end.<br />
Violence, because peace is fragile.<br />
Savagery, because civilization is the refuge of cowards.<br />
Chaos, because order is a prison.<br />
The unspoken, because words have spaces in between.<br />
Broken, because perfection is an illusion.<br />
The awake, because the dreaming must awaken and the awake must soon fall asleep.<br />
The present, because the past and the future are non-existent.<br />
The mystery, because the obvious is treacherous.<br />
The lament, because the ode must never hit a false note.<br />
Death, because life slips away.<br />
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For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together</div>
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There was a Christmas special run on Focus on the Family years ago called The Innkeepers Dream. It was about a gregarious, humorous devout innkeeper swamped during the census. The entire play is a monologue. It is Ahkim, the innkeeper, telling his friend Julius about the most magnificent dream. He dreamed he'd been patronized by a young couple named Joseph and Mary in town for the census. He also dreamed that later that night, he went up into the hills to deliver some food to his brother in law who was a sheperd. There were angels. And the angels told them that Messiah was born and lying in a manger in a stable. The innkeeper was dumbstruck when his was the inn and the stable to which they were directed. He was deliriously happy when Joseph told him that he could hold Messiah. But first he wanted to go in the inn to bring out more blankets and fresh water. That was when, he told his friend, the dream ended. Then, he saw a pitcher of water and fresh blankets sitting by the door, waiting to be delivered to the stable. Manheim Steamrollers beautiful version of Silent Night plays as the dawning realization steals over him that the most stunningly incredible dream he has ever had, that anyone has EVER had, has come true. </div>
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Imagine that.<br />
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I'm not what you'd call your average optimist. I have a saying, It's always darkest when you have your head stuck in the sand. Meaning, don't pretend. Sometimes things are horrible. And I've also never been a big fan of the Well, it could be worse, look at THAT poor guy bandaid. For one thing, if I say that about THAT guy, and he says it about someone else, SOMEWHERE down the line, there's gonna be some poor soul who says Well, yeah, it's bad, but at least-- and then he looks around to find he's the last one in line. Then guess what? His only comfort, his ONLY solace is Christ.<br />
And what a solace! It's as if things were really as bad as they could ever get. And they were, for all of us. Because of the gulf fixed between us by sin, we were bound for a fate more horrifying and despairing than any nightmare.<br />
And then, a plot twist. And now, our wildest dreams cannot account for the glory to be revealed in us.<br />
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There is so much expectation these days, perhaps more than ever, of the return of Christ. And it does indeed seem that conditions have never been more favorable. Seems like the perfect storm. But, you know what, if He doesn't return for another million years, it DOESN'T MATTER!!<br />
WAKE UP!! Your dream has come true. </div>
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nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-85826516633320487852016-11-19T12:17:00.000-08:002016-11-19T12:17:59.226-08:00To A Hammer...A pair once as well crafted as youth could fashion, with enough young untested muscle to pad the artistry with an untried, tentative masculinity: a perfect storm of potential.<br />
Now near the completion of two-thirds of a life characterized by hard, unskilled labor, the potential seems realized, if amused at how. The muscle has swollen in the web, looking like excess, but in reality only just enough to perform daily duties. The half inch scar from a dull accident with a dull machete on a dull, hot afternoon, once a dull white, is now a duller brown.<br />
The fingernails still bitten down from nervousness, from economy of time management, from distaste of white, from disregard for hygiene.<br />
Stress shows on the inside edge of the thumb cuticle; a gnawed, picked rawness that gets tucked under the palm in certain circumstances.<br />
They look strange when hanging in pictures, unnatural, uncomfortable with idleness, cocked at an angle inconsistent with the curve of the forearm, ready for they know not what, apt tools of a restless mind.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-1360467548658709182016-07-21T17:32:00.000-07:002016-07-21T17:32:49.325-07:00Only You Can Prevent Ignorance http://www.businessinsider.com/drudge-report-trump-2016-7<br />
<br />
I have blamed conservative media for the rise and inexplicable failure to fall of Donald Trump's political viability.<br />
I now double down on that accusation. I've linked to an article about one of the most interesting figures in modern media, Matt Drudge.<br />
The title of the linked article is The Man Who Could Have Stopped Donald Trump.<br />
The information offered in the article does not provide ironclad proof that Drudge alone could have spared us this torturous dragging out of a very bad joke, but it does indicate that there was certainly no attempt at objectivity on Drudge's part during the interminable 2016 primary season.<br />
Matt Drudge is an interesting side effect of the internet. He is not a journalist. He is a news aggregator. He provides links to articles that usually support his narrative and sometimes provides the links with his own titles, often from quotes within the article, often from his personal conclusions drawn <i>from </i>the article.<br />
I encourage you to read the article. It's very informative, and, from my perspective, damning, even though it seems as if it must have tickled Drudge's vanity since it was on his very web page that I first saw the article. And well it might puff the chest of a man who takes pride in his power to mislead. The Pied Piper could take piccolo lessons from this guy.<br />
Here's a pertinent quote from the article.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifdt5FDMMjL7RiUpR2z3pidp4Mr7BZC6H1Nezil89qy-SZ35be908AwGZMDAzh7Sj6Qrm_pbPbBjDUF1R8VNFQ95t000J8DaMXTXKSY3Ql1x54-O-kSVbWKREAqJyJJoMv6hMTQnV-Ctw/s1600/Screenshot_2016-07-21-19-39-41.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifdt5FDMMjL7RiUpR2z3pidp4Mr7BZC6H1Nezil89qy-SZ35be908AwGZMDAzh7Sj6Qrm_pbPbBjDUF1R8VNFQ95t000J8DaMXTXKSY3Ql1x54-O-kSVbWKREAqJyJJoMv6hMTQnV-Ctw/s320/Screenshot_2016-07-21-19-39-41.png" width="180" /></a></div>
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I can only speculate as to Drudge's justifications for refusing to link to any article that cast Trump in any light that did not capture the essence of the illusion of the no nonsense Dirty Harry. Perhaps it was genuine belief in the billionaire. Perhaps it was crony capitalism. Perhaps it was a victory lap around the fallen walls of of the liberal monopoly of news. Perhaps it was only a Pavlovian hobby. Doesn't really matter. What is certain and what he even seems quite proud of is that visitors to his website received only one side of the Trump story.<br />
Now, what should we make of this information? First, we must establish that news is a product. Successful news networks, websites and aggregators treat their customers in a way that encourages return business. They give the consumer what is more likely to be consumed, and more importantly, digested, with no danger of uncomfortable heartburn or acid reflux.<br />
Of no concern at all to the provider or the consumer is the clarity of the environment which is adversely affected by the excessive flatulence that such a diet sorely lacking in nutrients and fiber produces.<br />
News has always been a product to be consumed and has always been subjective. Even if it were just you telling your friend about the Dallas Cowboys game, you wouldn't say they lost by 6 points. You would say they almost won. But now, just like cars, phones, emojis and football franchises, you can literally find the news product that suits you to a T and reinforces your views. And sometimes it's a very subtle shading that sells the consumer. The National Enquirer is the obvious snake oil salesman. If it were a car dealership, it would be called Honest Abe's Luxury Autos Under 1000$. Nobody's buying there unless they only HAVE a thousand dollars and 0 credit (ibility).<br />
The respectable capitalists don't insult the consumer's intelligence. There are no outrageous claims that can easily be discredited like HILLARY CLINTON IS HONEST or DONALD TRUMP RESPECTS VOTERS INTELLIGENCE.<br />
No outright lies be told. The good ones are simply very skilled fact selectors.<br />
Of course, Drudge nor anyone else is under any obligation to tell me the truth. Caveat emptor. That is the first lesson I take from this. I'm responsible for the information I take in, and more importantly, I'm responsible for what I <i>believe.</i><br />
The very first thing to do is to know what you believe. That I tell you to do this BEFORE you consume information indicates of course that I posit that there are transcendent guiding principles that need no input.<br />
I'm pretty sure someone will read this and roll their eyes and mutter Yeah, don't confuse me with the facts.<br />
Let me clarify. You don't need facts or outside information to understand that people have inherent rights. You don't need facts/outside input to understand that asking the innocent to give up rights because of the actions of the guilty is wrong.<br />
Where information comes into legitimate play is maybe knowing that a certain person in question has violated the rights of others, and so forfeited some of his rights<br />
I'm aware that someone reading this may have some beliefs that directly oppose mine. That's perfectly fine. I have enough confidence in my core beliefs and enough confidence that those who earnestly seek truth will find it.<br />
The next step, I believe, is shrinking your area of concern.<br />
If news is only a distraction for you, carry on. I wouldn't presume that news about your city council meeting would be nearly as entertaining or expertly packaged as news about the UN Security Council. Some people watch news instead of soap operas. And that's fine, too, although it does imply that if the news you're viewing is as entertaining as fiction, it might conceivably BE fiction, or at best, "loosely based on a true story."<br />
However, if you consume news FOR the information it professes to contain, and are the sort who then sometimes acts on that information, here are three good reasons to think local.<br />
1) You will never know all the information about any situation that involves anyone or thing apart from yourself. You may be an eyewitness to a crime, but you would still only have your perspective to rely on. But it stands to reason that the fewer degrees of separation between you and the situation being reported, the firmer grasp you will have on the facts. Every time the information goes from one person to the next, it gets filtered. Sewage can become drinking water, and vice versa.<br />
2) I mentioned a city council meeting as opposed to a UN meeting. Another important difference between the two is you can actually ATTEND the next city council meeting, but if you tried to attend the next UN meeting without an invite, you will be met by men with guns that are far more functional than that miserable knotted symbol of peace that stands outside the UN building.<br />
You can have an impact.<br />
Some (not all) politics IS local.<br />
3) You'll sleep better at night. Less obsession about things outside your control and more actual action taken in matters that are small enough to be affected by you will quiet your mind and strengthen your resolve.<br />
<br />
Now, I don't expect you to leave off following national or global news. But, I would encourage you to try to keep it in perspective, balance it with local and state news, and, most importantly, let your conscience be your guide.<br />
<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-48005307938141609872016-05-20T13:29:00.000-07:002016-05-20T13:47:59.356-07:00The Things Which Are Not Darkness, because daylight hides the unknown.<br />
The moon, because the sun cannot be looked upon.<br />
The worst, because the best is yet a lie.<br />
The sigh, because the song will end.<br />
Violence, because peace is fragile.<br />
Savagery, because civilization is the refuge of cowards.<br />
Chaos, because order is a prison.<br />
The unspoken, because words have spaces in between.<br />
Broken, because perfection is an illusion.<br />
The awake, because the dreaming must awaken and the awake must soon fall asleep.<br />
The present, because the past and the future are non-existent.<br />
The mystery, because the obvious is treacherous.<br />
The lament, because the ode must never hit a false note.<br />
Death, because life slips away.<br />
<br />
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together<br />
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<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-44053934370304104312016-05-15T06:57:00.000-07:002016-05-15T07:14:02.925-07:00Some Other Words For Grace Besides AmazingNo other word for grace but amazing.<br />
But I would like to offer some runners up: inexplicable, incongruous, cognitively dissonant, perplexing, scandalous, subversive, disruptive, inconceivable, difficult, strange, humiliating, liberating, enslaving....<br />
Grace is the biggest hurdle for the unbeliever, and for many believers as well.<br />
What concept is more integral to humanity than merit? What could possibly be more disruptive to fairness than grace?<br />
More impossible than acceptance of the supernatural to the sensibilities of a good person is the idea that no good we can do could ever determine our goodness, and that no bad we could do could ever place us outside the limits of redemption.<br />
I have said before that modern secular humanists, with their incremental, legalistic creed of achieving goodness with no eternal ulterior motive, with no hope of reward, have taken pride to dizzying, unprecedented heights, but it seems I had forgotten a monument called Babel. I have expressed incredulity at the hubris of a current presidential candidate who said he believes in God, but has never felt he needed His forgiveness, but it seems I had forgotten myself.<br />
It is the plain, insipid truth that pride is not merely in our DNA, it is both rails and each rung of the twisted double helix. We, I, will be good enough, or "I" will not. No proffered hand, no vicarious atonement will be tolerated. If I cannot be good, it is revolting and insulting to allow the possibility that something could be a Substitute, a Scapegoat bearing my sins sent into the wilderness while I go unscathed and guiltless back to camp.<br />
Do the math. If I do more good than bad, I am good, even if, no, <i>especially if, </i>there is no scorekeeper.<br />
It could be said that the good atheist is a spiritual libertarian, taking responsibility for his own goodness without incentive, and the good christian is the spiritual statist, abjectly grateful for every undeserved crumb that is thrown him.<br />
Gratefulness is a vile anethema; self preservation a cowardly sellout.<br />
<br />
And yet, here am I, the fiercely independent political libertarian, the UPS guy who dismisses all offers of assistance with numerous or overweight packages with "Nah, it ain't heavy." only occasionally aware of the filthiness and raggedness of my own goodness, but living by the almost subconscious certainty that grace is my only hope.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-40089586498622002622016-03-14T04:48:00.000-07:002016-03-14T04:48:55.549-07:00Libertarian VignetteMost people of any political stripe take their view because they feel it looks in the direction of utopia. From the extreme right of fascism to the extreme left of communism (This popular spectrum, by the way, is misleading, since a person's rights are almost identically trampled on by a nationalist's jack-boot as by a socialist's sandal. It is not so much a spectrum as it is a circle, with authoritarianism having the force of gravity, and drawing everything continually, inexorably down to 6 o'clock.), people form their opinions as to which form of government is best because of the results they expect, or claim to have already observed.<br />
I take my view not because I have any utopian expectations or even any real conviction that my ways will make things better (at least as we think of better) but because I think my ways are right. I make no claims or guarantees that my ideas will lead us shortly out of this mess and into order. It should be obvious, in fact, that with my insistence upon leaving more things to individual choice, combined with my view that human nature is fallen, that the individual will not always, or even most of the time, make the right choice. My views are not the results of surveys and studies that indicate that if people are trusted more they will rise to the occasion. My view is not result based. If some well-meaning leftist were to ask me "But does your idea work?", my ready response would be, "Frankly, my dear........." If they were to ask "Will the individual make the right choice?", my response would be, "What business is it of mine, or, more to point, yours?"<br />
Now, I think that giving people more freedom is the right thing to do, and although I don't believe that gives any promise that things will all work out, doing the right thing is the best we can do. And, since I believe in an active, involved Creator, I believe that doing the best we can do gives us a right to expect better results,<br />
or at least be able to blame God when we don't get better results. nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-39947733962927054072016-03-13T18:10:00.001-07:002016-03-14T14:26:56.522-07:00Next To Last Word on Donald TrumpI probably should have done this a long time ago.<br />
It might have spared me some anger. Then, again, it might not have, and it may not yet. I suppose it's even possible that announcing my last word on the subject may even cause me some great frustration. Which is why I won't announce this is my last word on the subject, but I do promise this speaking of my piece will be followed by fewer, if not a complete cessation of, posts about Donald Trump.<br />
One of the reasons I have continued to speak about Trump, apart from it being quite possibly the most bizarre developments in political campaign history, and if the electoral gods will it so, the office of the presidency, is it's hard not to shoot at such a gigantic target.<br />
His outsized persona, once the humorous if abrasive reality TV schtick, is now amplified a thousand times by the scrutiny of an incredulous, ratings-giddy national media. Full disclosure: I do not like people whose self-confidence approaches arrogance, so you can imagine how I feel about this person who has taken "self-confidence" to a Kanye West level in an arena that directly affects us all.<br />
I have said much about his arrogance, mocked his ego, and memed his incoherence.<br />
I have been first amused, then concerned, then shocked, then stunned, then catatonic, then enraged by his continuing popularity, then amused, then enraged, and so on, perpetuating a parallel to that cycle of grief.<br />
It's safe to say that the sheer violent volume of my vocal vehemence regarding this villain (sorry) has caused ears to fall deaf to me, and eyes to avoid any of my posts containing "Trump" by rolling upwards. And that's one reason I pledge to discuss him less.<br />
Among the many things I've said, I have hinted at what I believe is the largest culpable player in this hoodwinking, but I haven't said as much as I'd like, believe it or not.<br />
The conservative so called alternative media has crafted this candidacy as surely as the so called main stream media aided and abetted the candidacy of the man whose politics and sympathies in large part led to the rise of Trump.<br />
First, FOX news. Yes, the very same network whose personalities have been in open warfare with Trump. I have developed some admiration that I did not have for individuals within that organization, specifically Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and John Stossel, but I, of course can have no idea of what sort of possible ratings conspiracies may have involved these television journalists, or if it has been some sort of happy coincidence. If it is the former, I expect Trump will have gotten the better end of that deal, since his many followers have expressed extreme distaste for their formerly go to news source, and will have, I assume, stopped watching, although one can't imagine to what other source they would turn. But, more on that later. FOX has indeed been far from effusive regarding the billionaire, their bias has been more practical. It's called ratings. A synonym for ratings is money. One (perhaps the only) dispassionate observation I can make about Trump is that there has probably never been a presidential candidate in the history of US media that has been more of a financial boon to those covering him. Trump= Yuuuge ratings. He is already an established TV star, an established boss who once tried to copyright "You're fired." And far from what some of us expected, his outrageousness has only seemed to inflate since he began what was up to this point the more serious business of running for President of the United States. The strongest and subtlest form of biased reporting is deciding what to report. I can hardly blame FOX to the extent that I blame other outlets, because I sincerely believe they are motivated by naught but gain, and I don't despise businessmen, I simply distrust them.<br />
Secondly, Drudge Report. I find Matt Drudge on quite the opposite end of this blame spectrum. I don't think that Drudge is not motivated by money, but his complete abandonment of any pretense of objectivity would seem to indicate that his desire for traffic is at least matched by his desire for revenge. Drudge has always been more or less unpretentiously biased. He does, indeed link to various and sundry news outlets, many of which are hardly conservative, but they are all handpicked to fit a narrative that is hardly unique in <em>purpose</em> to Drudge, but definitely unique in unapologetic malice.<br />
In the past, he has displayed vendettas against sometimes inexplicable targets. Newt Gingrich found himself the unlikely target of Drudge's ire, likely because he was running against Romney in 2008. Yes, Drudge was once an obvious Romney disciple. <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/romney-has-drudge-2012-01/">http://www.webpronews.com/romney-has-drudge-2012-01/</a> In fact, inexplicable becomes explicable when you know who Drudge supports. This time around, his bromance with Donald became painfully, awkwardly obvious after the debate in which Marco Rubio went after Trump, mocking his incoherence and lack of knowledge of.......anything. A couple of memorable Drudge headlines following that brawl read WINLESS RUBIO PECKS AT TRUMP and a photo shopped image of the Florida senator as a dwarf accompanied by the headline THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CAMPAIGN after Rubio bombed the Mississippi and Michigan primaries. <a href="http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/drudge-report-resorts-to-using-photoshopped-marco-rubio-pic-in-latest-pro-trump-move-60336/">http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/drudge-report-resorts-to-using-photoshopped-marco-rubio-pic-in-latest-pro-trump-move-60336/</a><br />
That link segues into the third largest player in this deception, Brietbart.com<br />
I believe that Andrew Brietbart would be dismayed at the PR firm his dream has become. He seemed to be an independent thinker with a conservative bias, not a revanchist carnival barker. If you only read one link in this article, read this one: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/01/breitbart-news-the-conservative-outlet-taking-swings-at-all-of-donald-trumps-opponents/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/01/breitbart-news-the-conservative-outlet-taking-swings-at-all-of-donald-trumps-opponents/</a> It has ample evidence of Breitbart's targeting of the clearest and most present dangers to Donald Trump, even to the diminution of attacks on who you would suppose might be their primary target, the self declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.<br />
NewsMax follows, not as a true news site, but as an aggregate site of syndicated columnists and bears not as much responsibility for this travesty in actual content as in their advertising pitches for new viewers using Trump as their bait and spokesman.<br />
Now for the last, possibly most influential form of pro Trump media.<br />
Facebook memes. Memery has encapsulated everything that is best and worst about the information superhighway.<br />
Succinctness is a reckless wager. It can certainly get across a point with levity and brevity. It can deliver a message that would otherwise go unread, but in streamlining a message, you can very easily omit information. But the very entertaining nature of these sometimes factoids, more often obfuscations makes them ubiquitous and therefore perhaps even more influential than all the other sources combined. A picture is already worth a thousand words. Combined with the 10-45 words often contributing to the meme, you have up to 1,045 unaccountable words, who have no obligation to be truthful, or even well-intentioned.<br />
As a result of this betrayal of any sort of journalistic ideals in favor of ratings and Fight Clubism, I have fortunately found a few sources who, although I don't exactly trust because....I can't anymore, appear to be issue honest, and have had Donald Trump's number for some time. Reason.com, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh come to mind.<br />
Ultimately, I am left with a sobering, boring lesson. Believe nothing you hear, and nothing you see.<br />
The best you can do, in order to be informed about important issues (although another lesson I have learned is it might not be a bad idea to shrink your circle of concern, "Worry Local", perhaps) is to keep reading. Read conservative and liberal media, national and international, and rely on your instincts, not your biases, and not your disgust for the status quo.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-89568389422141512192016-02-12T21:09:00.001-08:002016-02-12T21:09:23.044-08:00The Beautiful UnknownI am drawn to the beauty in understatement. I like earth tones. I wear muted clothing. My mind comes alive at night. The desert inspires me. A forest utterly devoid of human presence electrifies me.<br />
The psychology of this fascinates me, partly because psychology intrigues me, and partly because I may or may not be slightly self-engrossed.<br />
I think it's safe to say that a significant cause of this penchant for simple elegance is a strong suspicion of magnificence. And that likely has a great deal to do with the conviction that anything that promises to blow my mind or sate my senses will ultimately disappoint. It is virtually impossible to oversell me on anything, since any advertisement that garauntees anything more than one step above mediocrity will automatically earn my disbelief.<br />
However, I don't consider myself morose. Melancholic, slightly mercurial, reserved but not perpetually depressed.<br />
And it really isn't that I feel that understatement is just not getting my hopes up, it is truly beautiful to me.<br />
I find stone cold reality exciting because it is reality and not because it is exciting.<br />
But it must be contingent upon something.<br />
I don't believe that there is any way gazing into a dirty reflection could make my heart beat faster if I didn't know that it was a reflection and that it was dirty.<br />
When I am asked on occasion what I base my faith on, if I were being brutally honest and not trying to say what I think the questioner expects or needs to hear, I would say that it is because of this irrepressible smile that is buried so deep and cautiously within that it never shows. Since I have no tangible proof, I suppose you could say that it is a gamble, as if Pascal were wagering with me personally, and I, even as a man vehemently scornful of false hope and empty promises, a man who would die before he bought a powerball ticket, place my bet with a reckless joy. The joy of pressing the pedal to the floorboard, the joy of leaping from an airplane, the joy of sitting in total darkness, joyful because you know Something is there in the darkness beside you.<br />
<br />
<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-57968801297371136772015-12-21T18:03:00.001-08:002015-12-21T18:03:02.203-08:00My Christmas CarolSome Christmas movies can be watched several times throughout the season; the light ones, the funny ones. But usually just once a year I get out a DVD of A Christmas Carol. I have seen and enjoyed the animated version and I know there are untold renditions, but my favorite version of the miser is portrayed by George C. Scott.<br />Scott sinks deep and dark into the role. The first version I ever heard was the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck and Goofy as Jacob Marley (some of the quotes are still stuck in my head) and perhaps set the tone for what I thought of as the character of Ebenezer Scrooge: cranky, miserly and in need of an attitude adjustment and some perspective. But Scott gives us a usurer who has grown first flippant, then arrogant, then bitter and as we find him snarling at his nephew, we find that bitterness has metastasized into a malignant malevolence that glitters in his eyes and crackles in his mirthless laugh. The timeless words "If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." are relieved of their gruff humor and tinged with an almost sinister ill will. And when Fred extends his Christmas dinner invitation, Scott's Scrooge does not brush him off with the air of someone who is ill at ease, but with a cool contempt, "I'd sooner see you in hell."<br />His interaction with the gentlemen collecting for charity has that same active hostility, and his dealing with his colleagues at the exchange show his greatest joy in life is conniving and squeezing.<br />Even as he begins his baptism by fire into the world of spirits with the arrival of Jacob Marley, he is defiant and sarcastic. Marley's overwhelming overriding of Scrooge's analytical dismissal as he screams "MAN OF THE WORLDLY MIND, DO YOU BELIEVE IN ME OR NOT??!!!"" is quickly forgotten, like a man who quakes at fire and brimstone in the pew while the last verse of <em>There's A Great Day Coming </em>plays and then finds the sweat quickly cooling on his brow after the dismissal in the foyer. He goes to sleep uncomfortable, but hopeful that it was, after all, an undigested bit of beef.<br />He is brusque with the Ghost of Christmas Past. His coal-fired exterior does begin to show some cracks when presented with his days as a young man. You see him trying to make something of the coldness of his father, and you see him pitying his young neglected self. You even see him express surprise at the Ghost's strategic dismissal of Old Fezziwig and insist that his old employer was a kind taskmaster. Such are the memories of the bitter. The irony never presents itself to them. And then, when she begins to press him to make the hypocrisy apparent, he grows angry and demands to be left alone.<br />The stroke of two finds him a bit more apprehensive, but as the tone dies away, and no spirit presents itself, he begins to sneer at Old Marley's promise of a second visitor. He is slightly more sheepish in the company of the Ghost of Christmas Present. As their voyeuristic travels take them through the homes of his clerk Cratchit and his nephew Fred, he is dismayed at how people see him, then defensive. A positive sense of pity begins to invade his empty soul when he is shown the homeless family cooking potatoes that fell from a produce wagon, and then the sneering, mocking Ghost eviscerates him with his own words "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses??"<br />As the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves him in the dark, Ebenezer begins to do what we have all done with our Creator at some point. He begins to bargain. He is no longer the one calling the shots at the exchange, he now has something to lose. He has had to admit to himself that he has been self-centered, and myopic, and needs to do better. His offers of meeting the Spirits halfway, however, fall into the empty blackness. The Spirit of Christmas Present isn't coming back, and he is alone.<br /><br />And then comes grace, the amazing grace that the slaver John Newton tells us taught his heart to fear. <br />The black, hooded skeletal herald, lacking only a scythe, stands motionless and mute as Ebenezer turns, knowing and dreading what will he will behold. The Ghost of Christmas To Come holds every card, and Ebenezer obeys his silent bidding, quaking with an almost paralyzing fear. As he witnesses the callous, but perhaps justified, reaction of his colleagues at the exchange at the passing of a peer, as he expresses distaste and outrage at the auction of his worldly goods in a seedy pawn shop, we know he must know. But he refuses to follow logical conclusions. <br />It is only at his own tomb that the bitter, hateful, selfish old man sees he has nothing to give in exchange for his soul. It is only now, that his ultimate fate is sealed, barring the death of himself, that we find him, and he finds himself, on his knees. The pride has melted and is literally gushing from him in sobs and pleas. I remember that moment. I remember when I first had to die. There is no agony like it. No humiliation equal. And there is also no shorter measurement of time between agony and relief, no equal comparison between night and day, than when Scrooge awakens to find the snow covered tombstone to be the rug on his bedchamber floor and the night of his death to be the morning of his and his Savior's birth.<br />I tear up. Every time. The weightlessness of his unburdened soul threatens to release him from the surly gravitational bonds of earth to soar to the face of God. And I remember just how amazing grace really is.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-45264170718836451532015-12-08T17:57:00.001-08:002015-12-08T17:57:18.477-08:00In Further Defense of Respect For the Individual<br />
It may seem counter-intuitive in a world where there is so much entitlement, but I believe too little is made of the individual. As always, my views on this are rooted in my belief in God. I believe that God created us with a free will. Consider free will. It is a terrifying, bewildering, exhilarating power. God has endured much questioning from Man through the Ages as to why He would endow such a hapless creature with such a power, seeing the trouble it has caused. But that power is our crowning glory. Without it, we would be indistinguishable from the rest of the biological organisms on this planet. God had His reasons, which are not to be confused with our finite "reason", for creating a biped out of dust and giving him and her such a liability. And <em>He has profound respect for the free will He gave us</em>. In fact, He will not override us when we make the ultimate bad decision, and reject Him. <br />It seems to me that if God respects the power of our choices, we should do no less. <br />But in so many ways, we are quick to try to save individuals from themselves. There is absolutely a place for concern, and advice and possibly intervention when an individual is on the wrong path.<br /> But this is not, or should not be, in the wheelhouse of the state.<br />
We live too large, having opinions about things that do not affect us, whether it's halfway across the country or halfway around the world. We earnestly discuss foreign policy, foreign aid, with most of us having no firsthand perspective of that which we speak. There are very real problems, certainly, across the globe, and it is not as if our opinions have no effect. In fact, the average American voter probably hasn't considered how much their opinion, or their apathy matters. Opinion polls drive politicians to do the things they do, and voting, although it seems like frustrated impotence at times, does have an effect. It plays a part in electing officials who will make decisions that will actually directly affect those halfway around the world, or maybe just in the next state. <br />But the problem is, the more removed you are from the consequences of your opinions or your votes, the easier it is to be careless. The well-intentioned Republican voter may insist that an omnipresent American military presence is best for the world, but that would in many cases involve disregarding the aforementioned respect we should have for other individuals, even if they are halfway around the world, and even if they do often behave in a manner that perplexes us. We may at times offer assistance where an obvious grievous crime such as genocide is being committed, but the exit strategy should be immediate.<br />Now, the principle of making decisions about situations that don't directly affect you has another side. A well-intentioned liberal may insist that our aid to foreign, especially undeveloped nations should be large and perpetual. How could generosity ever be wrong? Once again, if you disrespect an individual, in this case by insisting they are helpless, you will, in the long view do more harm than good. Teach a man to fish and all that. You need only consider the widespread view of America as "arrogant." Many conservatives sneer that foreign countries are happy to take our money, but hypocritically see our military interference in their localities as arrogant. But I would argue that it IS our aid, as much as our interference, that they view as arrogant. That doesn't mean they won't take the money, but how many people on welfare here in America have no opinion about intrusive government? Very few. Just because it's ironic, doesn't mean they don't hold the two contradictory ideas and never consider the contradiction. Here in America, many of the areas of the country that receive the most government assistance often vote in a way that could be and is interpreted as anti-government.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-38439018157682839622015-12-05T00:18:00.000-08:002015-12-05T00:18:18.153-08:00Random PostSo I like to think about abstract stuff. This is not necessarily indicative of any great capacity to understand or even communicate what I don't understand, but it's where my mind constantly goes; just beyond the limit of my credulity.<br />
I suppose that many (possibly most) thinkers on things mysterious are so inclined because they have a need to understand, almost a need to gain a measure of mental and/or emotional control. In fact, this is likely the very reason for so many of the landmark logical concepts, creeds, rules, laws, syllogisms and premises that give topography to the epistemological map that exists thus far. Many of the men whose thought processes I treasure and admire were problem solvers.<br />
But that's not me.<br />
What I dread most is a world that makes complete sense.<br />
Often simple observations about a personal quirk of mine are what leads me to self-discovery and this is no exception.<br />
I lay here on the living room couch in the wee hours, having fallen asleep early and thrown off my inscrutable REM cycle.<br />
The Christmas tree is up, and is swaddled in lights that twinkle. I love these kinds of lights. It makes a Christmas tree interesting in and of itself. But I found myself trying not to notice whether there was any particular pattern to the twinkling. Even now I don't know but I sincerely hope there is no pattern (which I realize is unlikely ((electricians, hold your peace)) ) because then this peaceful thought provoking icon would become something I would probably begin to avoid. <br />
I find the twinkling comforting, probably because it's evocative of the unpredictability of flame or lightning. If I were to discover a pattern to it my neuroses would feel manipulated. I don't like being manipulated. I like nature sound white noise UNLESS I can detect a loop. Then I'd much prefer to listen to a live chainsaw. I don't mind the faucet dripping if it's irregular. If it becomes predictable, it will drive me to extreme measures, such as fixing it, or putting in earbuds.<br />
I have also often thought how refreshing it would be to be picked up by a passing tornado.<br />
This is what excites me about the remote outdoors. When I can get in a place that is ruled by randomness, my mind can rest. Trees aren't planted on a grid. Rocks are not arranged. I thank God for wind, and feel at peace when I think of the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the deep, stirring the dead waters, or marching in the treetops as a covert signal to King David.<br />
Chaos comforts me, because I don't understand it.<br />
My soul can find peace, not always on the surface, but in the Mariana Trench, because I know my God is fierce, often brutal to my finite sympathies, far beyond my heavens and earth, limitless, eternally just beyond the limits of my understanding.<br />
The song says We'll understand it better by and by.<br />
May it please God, I sincerely hope not.nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-55142195260003572692015-11-05T11:50:00.000-08:002015-11-16T08:34:22.940-08:00Thomas Wolfe Was Only Half RightI just got back from my hometown. When you haven't been home for 16 years, and you're the least bit introspective, you expect various and sundry epiphanic moments. The problem with expecting them is that they are predetermined to a degree, and influenced by years of gathering nostalgia, and nostalgia is notorious for it's sepia saturation filter. The traumatic times aren't forgotten, but they are appropriated to your attempts to make sense of your life, a tone or direction to the narrative of you.<br />
So intellectual, emotional honesty can be elusive, or at least, if, as I said, you are the least bit, or as in my case, <i>overly </i>introspective.<br />
But Duncan, Oklahoma is, naturally smaller, and also flatter than I remember.<br />
Hills as landmarks was a sometimes misleading method of navigation.<br />
My memory seemed to adopt the same effect as binoculars, as when you raise the glasses to your eyes to examine a distant hill and find it dramatically steeper.<br />
This is disappointing.<br />
It also makes me wonder what a West Kansan prodigal experiences upon his arrival back home.<br />
That particular area of Oklahoma, though, is unique. In fact, you leave the exact terrain and flora to which I refer by traveling 30 miles in any direction. The post and blackjack oaks that I knew were small even as a boy seem to lose their stark peculiarity toward Lawton, or Texas.<br />
The hills are the same. They seem deliberately miniaturized, like a 1:2 scale model of the greater Great Plains.<br />
I did some walking in the fields, remembering sharp smells of weeds and soil. In vain I looked for the specific weed that often held a small ball of foam in the crook of trunk and branch that was home to an even smaller caterpillar. I remembered trying to duplicate this phenomenon by spitting on many a weed, only to see it drip away, revealing no caterpillar.<br />
I heard bluejays and crows predominate the fowl of the air. Wished it was night long ago before the whippoorwills vanished, leaving a vacuum of audial lonesomeness against the white noise of crickets and tree frogs, like percussion with no melody.<br />
I drove through a town whose streets were shortened and whose houses were subtracted from my bigger memory.<br />
Memorially, downtown was an almost endless parade of individual storefronts, many of which I remember walking past in the dead of night, with my Dad on his downtown security route.<br />
Now, as I drove slowly by, irritably aware of the irritated drivers behind me, I realized that all my remembered significance would pass by in a disinterested blur for anyone who wasn't born here or who never moved.<br />
The library, shrouded in my remembrances as a venerable, benevolently haunted edifice with aisles as distinct and definitive as the Great Wall of China, delineating children's fiction from inscrutable reference tomes, physically haunted by an elderly bald man with a waxed handlebar mustache against which all handlebar mustaches I have ever seen are measured, is now an insurance agency. Ironically, it houses the agency that once resided in the much larger building out on Highway 81 that now hosts the library. Happily, it seems that apparently books have multiplied in an inverse proportion to insurance agents.<br />
<br />nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094217627013380884.post-5114043350835174122015-10-24T20:05:00.001-07:002015-10-24T20:05:30.152-07:00Christian LibertarianismWorldviews change. I prefer to say mine has distilled. Whether or not that is an obfuscation you can only decide for yourself. I have always called my self a conservative, and reluctantly allowed that such a designation, for better or worse, meant I was a Republican. That reluctance is retroactively telling. My reluctance had little to do with the usual accusations leveled at the GOP of being white, rich and out of touch. It had more to do with distrust of any large organization, whether political, civil, ecumenical, etc. And it also had a lot to do with the lack of conviction that was obvious to me. As I grew older, and the ebb and flow of politics became apparent to me, my disgust and distrust mounted. Nothing actually changed, or if it did, it didn't stay changed. It became obvious that survival was the primary aim of almost every politician in which I placed any hope. And for survival, compromise was necessary, usually at the critical juncture, when something decisive was in play. Show votes, faux outrage on the floor of the House and Senate; that was as far as even the most passionate ideologue was willing to go. I lost it when the Republicans wasted a huge majority in both houses. That was when the meme of Republicans out of power (Rottweiler) and Republicans in power (Chihuahua) became popular. I didn't find it funny. I changed my voter registration to Independent; a symbolic gesture, to be sure, a fist into a brick wall, impotent rage. (Although it does help to announce it on Facebook.) In the year following, with every passing month, my vindication was more and more obvious. <br />
But other things began to dawn on me. Some may find it funny, and it is, in a way, that a battle of wills with our HOA was the beginning of the crystallization of my creeping libertarianism. To make a long story short, at the one and only meeting I attended, I heard about things like uniform mailboxes, not using a sheet in your window, and this was so other people in the neighborhood wouldn't have to look at something unpleasant. It's funny, but it's also a small scale view of how most people think. My neighbor shouldn't do something that makes me unhappy. (Needless to say, the people at that meeting who weren't there because they were mad, were quite likely over-representing this busybody mentality. It was sleeting, and most people were at home, watching the Wildcats play basketball. There were two demographics there. Busybodies, and people mad at the busybodies. The hot-button issue was pushed to a mail-out ballot. Almost no one in the neighborhood responded. The policy stood, but the administration wisely read the mood of some of the more ticked off residents, and neglected to continue to try to enforce it.) <br />
But the point is, that there was a minority of busybodies, and a vast majority of people who just didn't care. But the idea that I should be forced to accommodate easily offended neighbors even INSIDE my own home got under my skin. When we first we moved to that neighborhood, I was even somewhat enamored of the idea that there were rules that would keep rednecks from trashing the place up. A few years later, I had made a complete reversal. There was a house down on the corner that went months without lawn maintenance. I told my wife that once upon a time, I might have considered bringing this up with the HOA. Now, I told her, I'd cut my own head off before I'd do that. She said she hoped it didn't come to that. <br />
This simple microcosm of the country pushed my limited government views far past the politically expedient neocon views and all the way into a cautious libertarianism. <br />
Events conspired to distill my views on foreign policy, criminal justice, government surveillance, gun control, and even abortion.<br />
I now feel I am more consistent. I will explain as best I can.<br />
I think it's important that a worldview be as consistent as possible an outgrowth of your most deeply held beliefs. I am a Christian before I am anything else (which, by the way, precludes any unchristianization of professing Christians who hold other political views, within reason).<br />
Jesus died for me. Jesus died for you. Jesus did not die for us. God created individuals. God did not create Adam and Eve as prototypes for mass production. He knits each of us together in our mother's wombs; a true original, every last one of us. We are born to immortality, an astounding thought of God. That should be humbling as well as inspiring. Every person is as valuable to God as Adam, His first image. Your self worth is entirely dependent upon your Creator, and as such, is beyond estimation.<br />
In materialism, or physicalism, a person's intrinsic value is dependent on another. In a vacuum, the individual is worthless. He/she must have some consciousness or self-awareness apparent to another person, and thus, have an effect on someone else. Materialists feel that they have the collective intellectual authority to establish personhood. If a man lived and died alone on an empty planet, he was pointless, and effectually non-existent, like the tree in the forest that was not heard falling. A person, theoretically, is of no value or consequence. Only people matter. People can impact one another. People can agree, if only tacitly, on very basic concepts of acceptable and unacceptable. People can have morality. People can have knowledge. People are an end in it's collective self, with no reason for being, other than perpetuation. But that is enough, for them.<br />
There need be no transcendent Cause for the effect of Being.<br />
There can be no denying the fact that God created us as a social animal. We are dependent on others for companionship, for love, for goods and services, but not for intrinsic value. This is the key difference. And this is the foundation for my views, which I will be trying to address, and address "individually."nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18272729990996686477noreply@blogger.com3