Lift Up Your Hearts!

Reading old newspapers is always eye-opening, even when they are from years I myself lived through.  While researching for another project, I came upon an old Ann Landers column, published in 1967.  What a difference 40 years makes.  Would Ann have given the advice in this excerpt even 10 years later?

Dear Ann Landers:   I feel like I am living in the dark ages.  My husband refuses to allow me to wear shorts in the summer or stretch pants in the winter. — Texas Woman

Dear Woman:  I say if a husband is opposed to shorts and stretch pants for ANY reason, a wife should respect his wishes.  There are plenty of attractive skirts you can wear, and I hope you will.

First I fumed, then I laughed.  All the emotions you would expect.  He “refuses to allow” her to choose her own clothing?  As if she were a child under three?  (Or maybe under two—I believe Faith has a lot of say in what she wears.  And opinions, as well.)  These days “controlling what you wear” makes the list of traits of an abusive relationship.  These days an advice columnist would be more likely to excoriate the man and maybe suggest the woman ignore him, or even leave.

And therein lies the bit of sorrow I feel that we have left those days behind.  How often in the 21^st century do we get advice to respect someone else’s wishes over our own?  To think less selfishly?  I’m reminded of Ann Landers’ own (later) advice to women unhappy in a relationship:  Ask yourself:  “Am I better off with him, or without him?”  Always, “What is best for me?” and rarely, “What is best for others?”^*

We have lost as well as gained.

...and I believe it.  But my Personal Economic Indicators indicate a booming economy.

I dislike shopping in the best of times, and December is not the most pleasant of months to shop, even when one doesn't have to deal with heavy coats and boots.  Yet sometimes need will drive me out to the stores, and I had hoped that with all the bad news about unemployment and and bankruptcies and poor retail sales, there might come compensation in the form of a less-crowded shopping experience.

But I went out today, and all indications are of an economic boom in full swing.  Very heavy traffic in the middle of the afternoon—I didn't think it could get worse, but proved myself wrong by still being on the road when rush hour began—and stores full of shoppers.  Buyers, too, if the checkout lines were any indication.

If this is the situation in bad times, how will we handle the good?  Our main road (not highway) is already 6-8 lanes wide.  How much shopping, and driving, do people have to indulge in for the economists to stop saying "consumer confidence is down"?

This passage from David Allen's Ready for Anything blew me away, and deserves its own post.

We recently raised some prices—because I didn’t want business to go away.  Let me explain.  One day, I recognized a subtle internal danger signal:  There was the tiniest bit of an “uh-oh” feeling inside me each time we were asked to do more and more of a certain kind of work for a favorite client.  It was almost imperceptible, but it was there:  I didn’t want the phone to ring.  After many years of watching this dynamic, I knew that if I allowed those feelings to persist, indeed, the phone would stop ringing.  This client would go away.

I confronted the feeling and discovered the root of the problem:  We were underpriced for the amount of time and attention we had to commit to do our standard quality work.  I had to challenge myself with this question:  “What do I need to do to make me positively excited about the phone’s ringing again?”  The answer was simple:  Raise the price.  Then I could feel good about dedicating the time and energy we do to this client—and the more time, the merrier.

When your front line feels overwhelmed, watch out for resistance to new … opportunities!  When a ringing phone creates stress at the spinal level, though the words may be “Can I help you?” the underlying communication is, “Go away!  I can’t handle you!”

I'm certain there is application here far beyond the business model, and that many families, friendships, projects, and resolutions are suffering because we fail to heed that internal danger signal and then do the often difficult work of figuring out how to arrange that we embrace, rather than avoid or resent, a situation.

When Porter goes out of town on business, his company pays a small amount to cover the cost of getting to and from the airport.  If we drive, I get most of that allowance to spend however I please, completely off-budget.  Why should that matter?  Our budget already contains a “hobby” category for each of us that serves the same purpose, and I could always make a strong case for fitting most of my expenditures into the regular budget anyway.  So why is my “taxi fund” so important to me?

Because Porter flies on a lot of airplanes, and the airport is 45 minutes away from home.  Usually he leaves really early in the morning and returns late at night.  What the taxi fund does is completely quell my inner reluctance to arise at a ridiculous hour—or worse, stay up late—and make the long drive.  Granted, I should be happy to do this just because it makes life easier for him and he really appreciates it, but I’m a sinful human being, and this really, really helps.  I enjoy the extra effort because I have so much fun with my taxi fund.

I once read, for an education course, a book by Robert Mager and Peter Pipe called Analyzing Performance Problems:  Or, You Really Oughta Wanna.  I don’t remember anything else that the book covered, but the idea that “you really oughta wanna” is a poor motivator has stayed with me for more than 35 years.  That is so true.  Actually, I find it more of a de-motivator.

There are many areas of life in which a seemingly small change could make a huge difference in attitude.  The Daleys’ new bedtime cleanup ritual is another example.  It was a minor change with very low cost that made a disproportionate, and delightful, difference in their lives.

We have a jelly jar to fill up with colorful glass gems….  Each evening at clean up time, we set a timer for fifteen minutes.  For every minute left on the timer … [the children] get to put a bead in the jar.  A bonus of five beads is awarded if the whole house is clean before we even start the timer (motivating clean up before the evening even arrives!).  A penalty of three beads is subtracted if the parental inspection reveals that the house is not clean despite the boys' statement that it is.

The reward for a full jar of beads is a special treat selected by the boys.  The most recent one was to watch a VeggieTales movie.

This works so well for our family.  Now, even if it takes the whole fifteen minutes and they get no beads, the job is done in that short time—in the past sometimes it would take until they were falling into bed and still not be done, really.  The past several days they have gotten most of their beads and even the bonus twice!  The jar is now half full again though it was reset only a few days ago!  The house is noticeably cleaner (ask my Mom who just visited!).  I know I'm using a lot of exclamation points, but I am so happy that this is working out.  Everyone benefits and it is turning out to be really fun.

Both of these examples involve money, or a form of money.  There’s a reason money was invented:  it’s quantifiable and convenient.  In many situations, however, overcoming our gut-level reluctance is not so simple.  We will need to think creatively and differently to find the key.  The most vital step, however, is recognizing our inner qualms and the importance—and efficacy—of adjusting the parameters.

Any ideas?

I'm a day late, but this is for our children, who loved Branagh's Henry V from an early age; for our grandchildren, who I trust will do the same in their time; for my nephew, who can speak the speech from memory; and for all who have ever felt the strength of we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. (H/T Andy B.)

Non nobis domine!

This fits well with New Year's Resolution #10.

Nice music, too.  (H/T Jon.)

I'm awed, amazed, thrilled, and grateful for the successful rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners.  I really am.  But there's a disquieting thought that keeps intruding on my celebration.  It seems curmudgeonly, at best, to point out that for most of their ordeal the miners have had contact with the surface, food, water, tobacco, medical advice, a very expensive and intense rescue effort, and the good will of the entire world.  I admire the men no end for managing to work together and survive such a horrendous experience.

But when I read over and over the concerns about the men's mental health, and how they will bear scars for life because of their ordeal, and of all the effort put forth to help them, including training in how to deal with the media (another tribulation!), I can't stop thinking of the men who for longer months endured captivity and torture during the Vietnam War.  Or the 444-day ordeal of the victims of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.  Or [fill in any one of a number of terrifying imprisonments].  Where was the concern for them?  Where the effort to ease their return to society?  Where, even, the money pouring in for interview, book, and movie deals?

Maybe we've become more concerned and compassionate over the years.  Maybe we just like a good, dramatic story.  I wouldn't take anything away from the support given these miners—but wouldn't it be nice to see that solidarity, that love, that attention, and those financial resources poured out for the ones who suffer even now, all over the world, mostly in obscurity?

Can it have been almost four years since Kelly James, Brian Hall and Nikko Cooke died in a blizzard on Mt. Hood?  I'm not usually one to follow closely television's relentless coverage of unfolding tragedy, but knowing Kelly's brother, Frank, made the events personal.

In the Shadow of Mt. Hood is an article written by Frank James in the September issue of Christianity Today.  (It's available online if you follow that link.)  I'm a bit reluctant to provide excerpts this time, as there is nothing he says that's not important.  (Those of you who know that I knew Frank when he was an elder in our PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) church, and know how I feel about most PCA sermons, will understand how significant it is for me to make such a statement.)  But here is a taste, anyway:

Grief is a relentless predator. Those who have lost loved ones tell me that one never completely escapes it. Strangely, a part of me does not want the grief to stop, because the grief itself is a connection to Kelly. Yet another part of me is so weary from carrying the burden of a broken heart.

In the midst of our family tragedy, I made a peculiar discovery. One would think that grief and disappointment with God would lead to bitterness against him. In my nightmare, I not only prayed intensely in private but also publicly declared my faith and confidence in God on CNN—but Kelly froze to death anyway.

There is disappointment, sadness, and confusion, but oddly, there is no retreat from God. Instead, I find myself drawn to God. To be sure, he is more enigmatic than I thought, but I still can't shake loose from him. There seems to be a kind of gravitational pull toward God.

Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy Sayers (Avon, New York, 1967)

Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorite authors, both fiction and non-fiction, and her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery stories among the best of that genre.  I've read them all so many times that quotations from them worm their way up from the depths of my brain unbidden, enabling me to appear knowledgeable in fields where my ignorance is nearly complete, as happened earlier this year while I was sitting in on a class about medieval manuscripts.

The beauty of Sayers' writing makes re-reading her murder mysteries delightful even when you know whodunit.  I was nursing a cold, and trying to forget the agony of descending from high altitude with completely clogged ears, as well as the frustration of not being able, at that hour, to purchase real Sudafed, but only the ersatz variety that proudly proclaims on the box that it contains none of the ingredient that really works.  In the mood for something that would distract without taxing to my befogged brain, I shunned my burgeoning "to read" pile and reached (again) for Murder Must Advertise.

This tale of Lord Peter's ventures into the British equivalent of Madison Avenue is a full of philosophical observations as it is of murder and intrigue, and the following passage struck me as particularly appropriate today.  Sayers—who herself worked as an advertising copywriter for a number of years—wrote Murder Must Advertise in 1933.

Where, Bredon asked himself, did the money come from that was to be spent so variously and so lavishly? If this hell's-dance of spending and saving were to stop for a moment, what would happen? If all the advertising in the world were to shut down tomorrow, would people still go on buying more soap, eating more apples, giving their children more vitamins, roughage, milk, olive oil, scooters and laxatives, learning more languages by gramophone, hearing more virtuosos by radio, redecorating their houses, refreshing themselves with more non-alcoholic thirst-quenchers, cooking more new, appetizing dishes, affording themselves that little extra touch which means so much?  Or would the whole desperate whirligig slow down, and the exhausted public relapse upon plain grub and elbow-grease? He did not know. Like all rich men, he had never before paid any attention to advertisements. He had never realized the enormous commercial importance of the comparatively poor. Not on the wealthy, who buy only what they want when they want it, was the vast superstructure of industry founded and built up, but on those who, aching for a luxury beyond their reach and for a leisure for ever denied them, could be bullied or wheedled into spending their few hardly won shillings on whatever might give them, if only for a moment, a leisured and luxurious illusion.

I wasn't going to write about the two recent examples of September 11-related hysteria run amok, because (a) there has already been too much reaction, and (b) believe it or not, the fate of the world does not hinge on what I write on the Internet.  But in another context I was invited to share my opinion, and you know how I love to get double duty out of the effort it takes to write.

First, the "Ground Zero mosque" flap.  Whether a mosque, or Islamic center, or church, or store, or apartment building, or library, or strip club is built in New York City is none of my business.  Nor is it the business of 99% of the others who have weighed in on the issue, including President Obama, foreigners, and talk show hosts.  It is New York City's business, at whatever level zoning regulations are made. If the neighbors object to a proposed project, they have the right, and possibly the duty, to oppose it at zoning board hearings, to write letters to local papers, to make local speeches, to go from door to door with petitions.  My opinion is irrelevant, as is that of the President of the United States.

The second bruhaha hits closer to home, because Terry Jones is in Florida, not much more than two hours away from me. I've been trying to ignore him, because he seems to be the kind of person who revels in publicity, be it positive or negative.  (Like rebellious teenagers, and like terrorists.)  His actions should also have been none of my business:  he's not my pastor, nor my neighbor, and I would no more forbid him to burn a Qur'an—or a cross—on his own property than I would forbid the building of a Mosque within sight of Ground Zero, even though both get people hot under the collar.  But he and the news media together have made it my business, threatening my family, my state, and my country.

Fear and anger make people do very unwise things, and one of the unwisest is the willingness to set aside the Constitution, the very foundation of our country.  I was asked about using hate speech laws to shut Jones down:  the very idea chills me to the marrow.  Freedom of speech is one of our greatest treasures, and that includes the freedom to say very unpopular things.  Even hateful things.  Labelling someone's opinion, however much you think it wrong, as "hate speech," and trying to control it, makes a very wide gate though which totalitarianism can enter.

Refusing to outlaw something is not the same thing as approving or deeming it wise, however.  And in the case of Jones, he himself has deliberately made his actions public business.  The First Amendment notwithstanding, there is precedent for controlling some forms of speech:  laws against slander/libel, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded but flame-less theater, and giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" in time of war, for example.  Jones is most definitely doing the last, giving credence to the enemy's propaganda and deliberately undercutting both military and civilian efforts to promote peace.

If there is anything good about his motives, he is at least incredibly stupid and not acting in accordance with his professed faith.  I haven't read much of the hoopla, but I did catch that he responded to questions of offense with the retort that he, himself, is offended when "they" burn the American flag, or the Bible.  What he obviously misses—besides the idea that we're supposed to love our enemies, or at least behave better than they do—is that an insult to the Qur'an is not nearly the same thing as an insult to the Bible, let alone to a flag.  To a Muslim, if my understanding is correct, it would be more like spitting on the consecrated Host.  The book itself is sacred.  I don't know if that applies to translations, which aren't considered the "real thing," but I suspect the insult would be taken similarly by most Muslims.  And the analogy I made probably wouldn't mean anything to Pastor Jones, since I suspect his church doesn't have a sufficiently high view of Communion to understand it.  But my point is, his analogy is flawed, maybe fatally.

I heard great story about a Canadian medical team in Afghanistan, known for its very good treatment of Taliban prisoners.  Explaining this, the doctor pointed out that, first of all, it was the right thing to do; second, since the battle was over a difference beliefs and values, it was important to act upon those values at all times.  That's also the attitude of the U.S.-based aid organizations that I know about, even though the Taliban is attacking them, verbally and physically.  And, come to think of it, that's the attitude of Jesus on the Cross, which one would hope would give Rev. Jones food for thought.

What's more, the doctor said, good actions, especially in the face of danger and provocation, will cause a cognitive dissonance between what the soldiers have been told by the Taliban and their own experience, which might lead to them questioning Taliban authority.  The Taliban knows this, of course, which probably explains their antipathy towards those who are sacrificing themselves to bring health, education, and infrastructure to these countries.

Jones, however, is doing exactly the opposite; I'm quite sure the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other militant Islamic groups are thrilled with his Qur'an-burning plan, no matter how personally offended their members might be.  There are better ways to express your belief that not all religions are equally true, or good, or beautiful (and with that I agree), without making your own look odious, and defaming the name of Christ.

I blame the news media, also.  We would have been much better off if Jones had been ignored, but he makes great copy.  The vast majority of Americans, who think he's nuts, and who are bending over backwards to say so, in word and action—are just boring.  The press is pouring (metaphorical) gasoline on Jones's flames.  Freedom of the press is another essential First Amendment right, but I do wish we all had more common sense.

Gabriel Kron. Of all the amazing people who have intersected with my life, he is probably the safest to write about, since he died more than 40 years ago.  So I will; he deserves to be better known.

I knew him as my father's friend and mountain climbing partner; my father knew him from their days together at the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York.  Dad, a Tau Beta Pi engineer (like his father, two of his children, and a grandchild), was no intellectual slouch, but he never pretended to understand anything of Gabe's work. 

It didn't matter.  I myself joined the Kron Klimbing Klub at age seven, and was mighty annoyed when I later learned that some other organization had usurped the acronym, "KKK."

One firm rule of the Klub I remember distinctly:  No eating until you reach the top.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much about this brilliant and unusual man, other than that I enjoyed climbing with him. Here is one memory from Dad's own Remembrances Along the Way.

Beginning in August 1959 Linda went with me on nearly all my climbing trips, her first climb being Buck Mountain on Lake George. There were three trips in 1960 and 1961 up Hunter Mountain, a 4000+-foot peak in the Catskills.

We climbed as members of the Kron Klimbing Klub. Gabe Kron was a mathematician of considerable note who worked for General Electric and who liked to climb mountains that were close enough at hand that he could leave Schenectady at 8 o’clock, drive to the mountain, climb it, and return by 5:00 p.m. Hunter was one of his favorites but such things as inspiring views meant nothing to him. He would get to the top, get out his lunch, sit on a rock and eat lunch and read the New York Times. Then he would go down and home. Ted Dietze and his son Rick also went on these trips and Gabe was infinitely patient with the children.

They were very enjoyable trips. Everyone who climbed with Gabe was a member of the Kron Klimbing Klub. One day we planned to climb Snowy Mountain. We left Schenectady with decent weather that turned to rain before we arrived in the town of Speculator. The children were not shod for wet weather so we bought them overshoes in Speculator. As we started to climb the weather turned cold and the rain turned to snow. The snow began to build up, the trail became slippery, and the climbing became very difficult because of the slipperiness. We turned around and headed back down well below the summit. Linda was so cold that all she wanted to do was to sit down and rest. Of course I would not allow that and I practically dragged her down the trail for several minutes until she warmed up and all was well for the rest of the way down.

The trip up Snowy Mountain I remember for three things:  (1) my new boots may have kept my feet dry, but they did nothing to stop them from getting very, very cold; (2) I was determined not to give up before Ricky Dietze did, as he was older, stronger, male, and thought he could beat me in everything; and (3) my chief fear in turning around before reaching the top lay in believing I would then not be entitled to lunch!

For much more about this remarkable person, read The Evolution of an Engineering Scientist, by Philip Langdon Alger (no relation, that I know of).  You must scroll down a bit to find the beginning.  I'll add some tempting excerpts below.

[T]he youngest child in a family of eight children, [Gabe] was born on July 23, 1901, in ... a town of about 10,000 people in a remote region of the Carpathian Mountains of Hungary. ... A boyhood friend described Gabe in elementary school as plump, always lively, always joyous, always having something to tell.  [P]eople who knew him well understood quite clearly that for him the environment of his home town was too confined and that a day would come when he would act to broaden his horizons."

Before he could escape, however, he needed to learn English.

"Being subjected during my life time to several inoculations with a new language, I gradually developed a technique of my own; that proved to be quite practical for acquiring a reading knowledge of a new language in a place which offered no contact with people speaking it. As young children we had been instructed in Hebrew ... In the Gymnasium we were taught Latin for eight years, German for six, and Greek for four years, each with the aid of the most elaborate grammar the human mind could devise. Under the guise of classical education the professors crammed our heads with an infinite variety of useless rules, exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions, so that languages were the most lugubrious subjects taught...."

"Realizing that the manner in which languages were taught was one of the hundred possible ways that should not be employed, I started out to use just the opposite tactics. Instead of memorizing grammar, I memorized the German dictionary. Our school dictionary had about twenty thousand words in it, a hundred words on a page; so, I tore out a page a day and committed it to memory. Then the page was thrown away. When there was no dictionary left, I considered myself an expert in the language. I could sit down, open up a French or German book anywhere, and proceed. Slowly and painfully at first, but nevertheless I could make headway in understanding the text....."

"[Finding no suitable English dictionary available, what] I did was to borrow an English book, which happened to be H.G. Wells' The Food of the Gods, and beginning with the first page I wrote out a hundred words each day and committed them to memory. After eight or ten pages the text began to assume more human form, and past the first chapter the content even became enjoyable."

In 1921, Kron and his brother came to the United States, ending up at the University of Michigan, a school which met their criteria:  "an engineering school that would cost no more than $150 for tuition, located far enough inland to be away from the flood of immigrants."  Gabe graduated in three years despite working to support himself.  He wasn't a typical UM student.  In his words,

"As always happens when a free spirit is obliged to undergo a prescribed routine, I wanted to study everything except what the curriculum called for. How to find time to study what one wishes, and not what the teacher thinks best for one's own good, must be a perennial problem to many an anxious pupil. Finally, I hit on the idea of arranging my schedules so that by Friday noon the classes would be all over. Three full days then each week from Friday noon to Monday morning I was free to pursue my own private schedule of study without the interruptions of regular classwork. The rest of the week I considered as a sacrifice on the altar of mechanized education." 

After securing American citizenship in 1926, he rode a tanker from California to Tahiti.

He lived as a guest in the family of a native in Tahiti for some weeks, then sailed to the Fiji Islands. He walked through the back country, shared native hospitality, swam rivers, and admired the tropical forest. ... In all his travels, his custom was to spend the usual siesta hours under a tree, studying mathematics.

Then he took ship to Sydney, where his money ran out....  After working long enough to clear £35, be bought [another math book] and took to the road again ... On the way he spent many nights in the company of the "sundowners," the Australian tramps who lived without working, with the aid of free food tickets handed out in police stations to anyone who needed them.

Kron sailed from Townsville to Borneo, and thence to Manila, Hongkong, and Saigon. Here, he started out on foot to Angkor Vat, and walked on to Aranha, where he took a train for Bangkok, then joined a caravan that followed the ancient trade route to Cockrake in Burma. He walked to Rangoon, took a boat to Calcutta, walked on to Agra, where he admired the Taj Mahal. He crossed the Indian desert to Karachi by train, took a boat across the Persian Gulf and went on by train to Baghdad, stopping to see the ruins of Ur on the way. He spent $5 for a truck ride across the Arabian desert to Damascus, then set out on foot again to Gaza. He hastened on to Cairo by train, saw the Pyramids, sailed from Alexandria to Constantinople and went by train to Bucharest, arriving at midnight at the home of a friend, with just small change left in his pockets. After an all-night talk, the friend financed his ticket to Baja Mare, where his parents welcomed him. The neighbors wanted to know why he had come home from America with his toes sticking out of his shoes, while every one else came home rich. No one asked about his travels.

Eventually he ended up, as stated above, working for General Electric in Schenectady.

Kron was a puzzle to the company executives who were responsible for his assignments. They wanted to tell him what to do, and to put him in a place where his talents would yield immediate, commercially useful results, and to adjust his salary accordingly. This was difficult, because Kron's value was largely in the inspiration he gave to others and in distant objectives that seemed to business managers to be merely dreams. As they tried to make the best use of him, he was shifted hither and yon. ... Kron had to pursue his own ideas outside of office hours.

This was no real hardship, however, as the company did give Kron complete freedom to publish his ideas, and to maintain contacts with a wide circle of interested men, outside as well as inside the company. Some commercial men, who did not like the engineers to talk about new developments, said that it would do no harm for Kron to write, as no competitor would understand him anyway.

What a dinner guest he must have been!

One thing I find attractive about Christianity is the balance it achieves between the physical and the spiritual:  when the heart of one's belief is that God became fully human while remaining fully God, it's hard to pretend that the spiritual and the physical are not both of supreme importance—and perhaps less separable than we would like them to be.  Psychologists are finding this truth in a surprising form.

Researchers have sought to determine whether the temperature of an object in someone’s hands determines how “warm” or “cold” he considers a person he meets, whether the heft of a held object affects how “weighty” people consider topics they are presented with, or whether people think of the powerful as physically more elevated than the less powerful.  What they have found is that, in fact, we do.

[S]ubjects were casually asked to hold a cup of either iced or hot coffee ... then a few minutes later asked to rate the personality of a person who was described to them. The hot coffee group, it turned out, consistently described a warmer person—rating them as happier, more generous, more sociable, good-natured, and more caring—than the iced coffee group. ...[S]ubjects were given clipboards [of two different weights, and] were asked to estimate the value of several foreign currencies.... [T]he subjects who took the questionnaire on the heavier clipboards...not only judged the foreign currencies to be more valuable, they gave more careful, considered answers to the questions they were asked. ... [S]ubjects who were asked to recall an unethical act, then given the choice between a pencil and an antiseptic wipe, were far more likely to choose the cleansing wipe than people who had been asked to recall an ethical act.

Ever wonder why British and American spellings are different if we theoretically speak the same language?  Color vs. colour, traveling vs. travelling, center vs. centre, aluminum vs. aluminium—are these inconsistencies merely some sadist's design to torment the multicultural child?^*  If so, Noah Webster was the man, but he thought he was making things easier.

We've been enjoying tremendously the Teaching Company lectures on the History of the English Language.   I can't recommend it enough:  we've learned many fascinating things about the evolution of our native tongue.  Recently the course touched on American lexicographer Noah Webster.

Dictionary-making has long been a battle between descriptivism and prescriptivism:  Should a dictionary merely reflect the language as it is, or should it be an authoritative recording of the language as it should be?  Noah Webster came down on the side of the prescriptivists, and he had definite ideas of how to clean up and simplify the language bequeathed unto us by those Brits we had so recently sent packing.

So he changed colour to color and centre to center, which he decreed made more sense.  Aluminum vs. aluminium is a more compicated story:  Sir Humphry Davy, who named the element, kept changing his mind, calling it first alumium, then aluminum, then aluminium.  Scientists preferred aluminium, but Noah Webster latched onto aluminum, and as the metal became common enough to enter popular discourse, to what did writers turn for authoritative spelling?  Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.

I was a Brownie, then a Girl Scout as a child.  Even then I was somewhat disenchanted, as I knew—thanks to my father's experience as a Scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts—how much more interesting the program, the experiences, and the skills learned would have been if only I'd had that Y chromosome.

Nonetheless, we had a good time, thanks to my father, who took us mountain climbing and taught us to build fires and tie knots, just as he had his Boy Scouts, and to a renegade leader who battled the Girl Scout bureaucrats for the right to take our troop on a tour of Europe.

By the time our own girls were of age, however, the Girl Scout program had, in my opinion, degenerated much further, becoming more "relevant," more "modern"—and even less fun.  What worked for us was the YMCA Indian Princess/Indian Guide program with its regular campouts and greater freedom to customize the local tribe's activities.

If we had young children now, I don't know what we'd do; the Y program has changed, whether for better or worse I know not.  But I do know what we would NOT do:  subject our girls to the new Girl Scouts.

Two years shy of their 100th birthday, the Girl Scouts are going through a midlife crisis of sorts, rethinking everything except their cookie recipes. 

Struggling to maintain its relevance after years of declining membership, the organization is rolling out a rebranding campaign — for the first time in 30 years — throughout the country this month, trying to shed the quaint image of crafts and campfire songs and reposition itself as an agent of change for girls.

This fall, the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas ... plans to introduce a new initiative, called Gamma Sigma. ... “Gamma Sigma suggests a club with sororitylike traditions like pinning and candlelight ceremonies that appeal to girls,” said Ann Maria Chavez, the council’s chief executive.

Traditional badges are out. Gamma Sigma will have speakers, workshops and experiences intended to bolster girls’ self-esteem and decision-making, Ms. Chavez said.

Can you say, "B-O-R-I-N-G"?

At least they're not messing with my Thin Mints.

Our local story of the disappearance and rescue of 11-year-old Nadia Bloom didn't stay local for long.

Mostly, I ignored it as much as possible, other than getting the occasional update for prayer purposes.  The media was going nuts.  And so were the nay-sayers, the gossips, and the fear-mongers.

To be sure, they had reason.  We've had at least two recent, high-profile cases here of "missing" children where at least one of the tearful, pleading relatives was most likely the perpetrator of a horrendous crime.  That's enough to cause a little cynicism. But cynicism and suspicion don't accomplish much, and in the end, Nadia was rescued after four days in Florida swampland by an ordinary man of faith:  faith in God, and faith that Nadia's disappearance was exactly what it appeared to be—a beloved child who adventured a little too far and needed help.

I'm not taking anything away from the professionals involved in the rescue attempt; I'm sure they follwed the right procedures and worked diligently and desperately to find her.  If you are wondering how hard can it be to find a child in "the woods," you need to re-read the story of Ponce de Leon's adventures in Florida.

Was James King—who set out because his wife reminded him that whenever they lose things, they always pray and God provides the answers, and wasn't Nadia lost?—was he hailed as a hero?  Eventually, but not until after questioning and a background check.  What a fishy story it was!  How could he have found her like that if he hadn't been complicit in her disappearance?  And how weird is it that he claims God led him to Nadia?  Fortunately, King was cleared quickly.

There several things that annoyed me as the story played out, more than enough reason to minimize my media exposure.  The suspicion and cynicism, as I said.  And more:  playing up Nadia's Asperger's condition as if she were a totally helpless child whose parents should have known better than ever to let her get out of their sight; latching on to the fact that she'd been reading a book about a girl who has an adventure, with the hint that such books are dangerous because they might lead a child to think adventures might be fun; even the fact that Nadia, who apparently could walk and was suffering from no more than bug bites and dehydration, was carried out of the woods by a rescue team, then given IV fluids and antibiotics and hospitalized for a few days.  It's hard not to wonder if in a less litigious era she would have been allowed to go home to her joyful family and told to rest and drink a lot.

But, whatever—the story has a happy ending, and if there's a dark side, no one has found it, although you can be sure they've tried.  Thus I was encouraged—encouraged enough to write about it—by Scott Maxwell's positive essay in today's Orlando Sentinel.   It's worth reading in its entirety, but here's an excerpt, since I know many of my readers won't bother....

Many of us struggle to believe that part of King's faith involves God actually speaking to him.

But perhaps we can believe this: If King didn't have faith, he wouldn't have been out there to find Nadia in the first place.

In fact, in the hours and days that followed the climax of this drama about a little girl found after four days, I couldn't help but think that perhaps the whole lesson was really about faith — not just in a higher power, but perhaps restoring our collective faith that bad stories truly can have happy endings. 

Because, tell the truth: You were probably skeptical.

I know I was.

I was curious to talk with [King] himself. Because I, too, can admit that I don't always get those who hear directly from God and talk back in tongues.

Maybe that's partly because I was raised Presbyterian in the South, where describing our worship style as "low-key" is like saying a string quartet is a little lower-key than Def Leppard.

[H]ow did [God] tell you? Did you actually hear a voice? Out loud? In your head? Did you see a sign?

"Sometimes, for me," he said, "it's just a very strong thought."

I see, I responded.

"We spend so much of our time listening to all the noise in the world, we don't hear the voice of God because our senses have become dulled," he continued. "That's part of why I haven't watched TV since 1989."

So said the man who did seven TV interviews before he spoke with me.

"Yeah," he laughed, "I didn't recognize a single person I did an interview with."

I'm still not sure King's expressions of faith match my own.

And I know I'm not alone. Even Nadia's grateful mother chose her words very carefully, saying that King was, well, "a little more evangelical than us."

But that's OK, isn't it?

I mean, we all know that religion has been used in heinous ways to justify some of history's most evil acts. Isn't it OK to stop and appreciate a man whose own faith practices might seem different, but who has at least used those beliefs for good?

I can't get inside the head of this 44-year-old father of five. But I did listen to the 911 call in which King can be heard talking with Nadia in the background, telling her that he brought along some chocolate milk. ("Yay!" she exclaimed.) And that she was a very brave girl. ("Thank you very much.")

And though I don't have all the answers, until someone has evidence to the contrary, I think Nadia's story can inspire us all.

It's a story of faith. And survival. And not always expecting the worst.

In “All Religions Are the Same…” (except Where They’re Not), John Stackhouse takes on the fallacy that all religions, at heart, are basically the same and of equal value.

What needs to be argued and not just asserted is that each of the major religions really does reduce down to moralism or mysticism without a loss to its essential character. And, in my view, most religions do not so reduce. Devotional (bhakti) Hinduism (the most popular form of Hinduism) doesn’t; Mahayana Buddhism (the most popular form of Buddhism) doesn’t;  Judaism doesn’t; and Christianity and Islam, the most popular religions in the world, certainly don’t. (I recognize that there are moralistic and mystical varieties of each of the Abrahamic religions, but the majority of believers and of those religions’ formal traditions do not, I maintain, reduce to mere moralism or mysticism.)

[A]s politically useful and personally pleasant a belief as it would be—that all religions are basically the same—I continue to aver what most of the religions of the world actually do say: They’re not basically the same and one does have to choose.

We’ll have to keep investigating and thinking about what Map of Reality (which is what religions and all other forms of life-philosophy purport to offer) is the best one. We don’t have to conclude that all religions are wrong except one. More than one map can depict at least some of the territory at least somewhat correctly. But we can’t blithely suggest that they’re all equally, or even fundamentally, right, either. That would have to be shown, and I haven’t seen a good argument yet for that (unlikely) hypothesis.