Lift Up Your Hearts!

I can hardly regret having escaped the appalling waste of time and spirit which would have been involved in reading the war news or taking more than an artificial and formal part in conversations about the war. To read without military knowledge or good maps accounts of fighting which were distorted before they reached the Divisional general and further distorted before they left him and then "written up" out of all recognition by journalists, to strive to master what will be contradicted the next day, to read and hope intensely on shaky evidence, is surely an ill use of the mind. Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be known before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress had been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand. — C. S. Lewis, in Surprised by Joy

Written more than sixty years ago, even more applicable today.

I read a satirical article recently in which someone from Political Group A wrote as if he were from Political Group B. Except for the vituperation and bad language, it reminded me of a "debate" I once heard at a former church, which had been billed as a chance to hear both sides of a controversy, in a debate format. It was a good idea; there was just one problem: The underlying assumption was that most if not all of the audience agreed with one side, and in fact so did the presenter of the opposite side. In a formal debate one is expected to be able to expound and explain a position whether or not one agrees with it—but this presenter apparently had no intention of doing so; his facts and arguments seemed selected for the purpose of making it clear how stupid they were.

The result of the event? Those who already believed in the chosen position went away cheered and even more convinced they were right. Those who believed in the position that was mocked went away convinced that there was no hope for understanding or reconciliation (and this in a church!). And some of us were merely embarrassed.

I get it. We all need the encouragement that comes from talking with like-minded people. But I'm pretty sure that mocking and demonizing one's opponents is the worst form of cheerleading. It's bad for our own souls, and if it falls into the hands of those opponents, it does not change their minds but saddens and hardens them, possibly beyond recovery.

Which brings me to an enlightening article by James Clear: Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds. It is well worth taking the time to read the entire article. Clear does not deal directly with the issues of anger and mockery, but illuminates a bigger problem: most human beings do not develop their views of the world based on rational argument—and we don't change our minds that way, either.

(Clear unfortunately plays fast and loose with singular vs. plural in the article. It drives me crazy. But I've let his words stand as he wrote them.)

Humans need a reasonably accurate view of the world in order to survive. If your model of reality is wildly different from the actual world, then you struggle to take effective actions each day. However, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong. ... Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. ... We don't always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.

Parents, if your child has already become dependent on a peer group, don't be surprised to find that he is deaf and blind to all the facts and logic you throw at him.

Social media, which ought to be a great place for the lively interchange of ideas, is perhaps the worst, because any attempt to move away from the consensus of one's Facebook friends is likely to be immediately called out and derided. We may be a long way from the Medieval Church, but excommunication is still a devastating threat.

If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome. The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

The British philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that we simply share meals with those who disagree with us:

“Sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction. However, the proximity required by a meal – something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt – disrupts our ability to cling to the belief that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted. For all the large-scale political solutions which have been proposed to salve ethnic conflict, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force them to eat supper together.”

I'm sure it's no coincidence that Jesus set up the meeting together of his disciples, his Church—which would mix together people of great differences in race and religious background, social class and culture—to center around a meal.

Another reason friendship is the best vehicle for exchanging ideas is that we are more likely to be convinced by someone with whom we already have much in common.

If someone you know, like, and trust believes a radical idea, you are more likely to give it merit, weight, or consideration. You already agree with them in most areas of life. Maybe you should change your mind on this one too. But if someone wildly different than you proposes the same radical idea, well, it's easy to dismiss them as a crackpot.

This is a good reminder to people like me, who like to broadcast information and arguments via Facebook or blogs:

If you divide [a spectrum of belief] into 10 units and you find yourself at Position 7, then there is little sense in trying to convince someone at Position 1. The gap is too wide. When you're at Position 7, your time is better spent connecting with people who are at Positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in your direction.

Here's an argument that hits in the gold for a book-loving introvert:

Any idea that is sufficiently different from your current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder a threatening idea is in a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates.

In conversation, people have to carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face and avoid looking stupid. When confronted with an uncomfortable set of facts, the tendency is often to double down on their current position rather than publicly admit to being wrong. Books resolve this tension. With a book, the conversation takes place inside someone's head and without the risk of being judged by others. It's easier to be open-minded when you aren't feeling defensive. Arguments are like a full frontal attack on a person's identity. Reading a book is like slipping the seed of an idea into a person's brain and letting it grow on their own terms.

I'd be with him 100% here—except that so many people these days simply don't read books. I wish Clear had addressed a far more effective, even insidious, way people are now being induced to change their beliefs. The seeds planted by music and the visual media slip in far more easily and take root much more deeply than those planted by logical arguments in books. Certain books of fiction do that well for me, but as I said, few people read. The movie version of The Lord of the Rings has affected far more people's beliefs than the book (the worldviews are not the same)—and the influence of Star Wars is several orders of magnitude greater still.

Finally, Clear makes the much-needed point that bad ideas and false stories persist because people continue to talk about them.

Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated.

And how are bad ideas most often repeated? When we complain about them!

Before you can criticize an idea, you have to reference that idea. You end up repeating the ideas you’re hoping people will forget—but, of course, people can’t forget them because you keep talking about them. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it. ... Each time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you are trying to destroy.

Fortunately, there's a solution, albeit one that is more difficult to implement.

Your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. Don't waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad. You are simply fanning the flame of ignorance and stupidity. ... Feed the good ideas and let bad ideas die of starvation.

Of course, there's still a place for correcting misinformation. (Emphasis mine)

Let me be clear. I'm not saying it's never useful to point out an error or criticize a bad idea. But you have to ask yourself, “What is the goal?” ...

When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. We are so caught up in winning that we forget about connecting. It's easy to spend your energy labeling people rather than working with them.

If our goal is not "to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe," what business is it of ours to try to correct them?

I never fail to get a kick out of the way my mind has a mind of its own. There are things I know that I don't know I know, tucked away in the depths of those "little grey cells," waiting to be called forth, or more likely, to bubble up at random times, unbidden.

For example, there was the time I saw an interesting-looking butterfly flitting around the garden, and into my mind popped, "It's a gulf fritillary." I had no idea I knew what a gulf fritillary butterfly was, but I know I'd seen the identification before, having quite long ago made a book about butterflies for our grandchildren. It was there in my mind, somewhere, even though I could not have voluntarily recalled that information.

Then there was this, quite recently: I had just finished reading C. S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy, and when my eyes passed over the title of the book on our kitchen counter, my mind filled in, "Impatient as the wind." After a moment's wonder, I realized that I was quoting a poem, and my next thought—again unbidden—was, "It's probably Wordsworth." Which, I later confirmed, it is. I have no idea from what depths that knowledge was dredged, nor why, at this particular time and place, it came to me.

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

I had been looking at the book and its title multiple times a day for several days, yet never once in those previous days had the poem come to mind.

I'm reminded, also, of the time early in her mathematical education, when our younger daughter cried out in frustration when I—dutiful teacher!—asked her to show her work, instead of just writing down the answer to the problem. "I can't show my work!" she exclaimed, "There is no 'work'—there is just the answer!"

I think we all know a lot more than we think we do—not everything we learned went in one ear and out the other. The problem is not so much knowledge as retrieval. It's all the more interesting to me because one of our grandchildren appears to have this undependable retrieval system under much better control than most of us: When he learns something, he knows it and he remembers it—at least a lot better than most of us do. How does that work?

And what other fascinating facts are there, sleeping in the recesses of my brain, that I know but don't know I know until they choose to reveal themselves?

I was eleven years old when the Beatles first came to America. The cultural effect, as viewed from sixth grade, was more momentous than the Cold War. Air raid drills—filing out of the classroom at the sound of a siren, covering our heads and leaning up against our lockers—we considered a normal part of life, but the Beatles dropped like an atom bomb on our world.

Their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show left me less than impressed. I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Truthfully, I still don't. Oh, I listened to Beatles songs, I sang Beatles songs, I even almost liked Yesterday. That was the cultural water we swam in, back in the mid-60's.

My negative feelings toward their music were exacerbated by a detested art teacher. No doubt my memory does her a disservice, but I hated her looks and style of dress, especially her heavy makeup, which bordered on scary—and most of all I hated that she single-handedly dismembered, destroyed, and demolished any thought I may have had that I could ever learn to draw. Art class was torture to me, and the fact that she insisted on playing Beatles records while we worked added injury to insult. I'm sure she thought she was doing us a favor, and I suppose that for most of my classmates she was right.

Some of the boys and nearly all of the girls were stark, raving mad about the Beatles. I never saw anything like the screaming crowds and high emotions that followed them wherever they were glimpsed. It's possible that my dislike of crowds and my distrust of mob mentality had their birth right there. I always say that the 1960's have a lot to answer for.

That's the backstory.

Our choir director recently went to New York City to attend a workshop. Broadway musicals being for him a large part of both vocation and avocation, he attended several while he had the opportunity. At one of them, he recognized the man who sat down beside him: Sir Paul McCartney.

Knowing Tim, he was (outwardly) cool and calm and didn't even trouble the man for an autograph. Inwardly I can only guess.

Being faceblind, I wouldn't even have recognized the former Beatle. Besides, I'm the kind of person who can go to New York City for two weeks and never see a Broadway show, preferring to spend all that glorious time in the New York Public Library. It was thrill enough for me to run into Gary Boyd Roberts, the New England Historic Genealogical Society's genealogist who guided my first faltering steps in family history back in Boston seventeen years ago.  (For those who are wondering, I had no trouble recognizing him, because I heard him speak before I saw him.)

But had they been in Tim's position, most of my female friends in middle and high school would have fainted on the spot.

I've been looking over some of my posts from years ago, and rediscovered this inspiring short film.  Take a 16-minute break and smile today.

It's time to reprise a favorite G. K. Chesterton quote.

Sex is an instinct that produces an institution; and it is positive and not negative, noble and not base, creative and not destructive, because it produces this institution.  That institution is the family; a small state or commonwealth which has hundreds of aspects, when it is once started, that are not sexual at all.  It includes worship, justice, festivity, decoration, instruction, comradeship, repose.  Sex is the gate of that house; and romantic and imaginative people naturally like looking through a gateway.  But the house is very much larger than the gate.  There are indeed a certain number of people who like to hang about the gate and never get any further.

— G.K.'s Weekly, January 29, 1928

Item: Football player Colin Kaepernick kneels before the American flag during the National Anthem as a protest against racism in America, and kicks up a storm of protest and counter-protest. He is accused of being disrespectful to the flag and the country.

Item: Nike, the shoe company, decides to make an Independence Day-inspired line of sneakers featuring the "Betsy Ross" flag, then reneges when Kaepernick objects, saying that the flag is a symbol of racism.

Item: Another shoe company takes up the slack—and I'd say the profits, except those are apparently going to a veterans' charity—and starts producing shoes with the Betsy Ross flag design. It is cheered by those who are offended by both Nike and Kaepernick.

Has the world gone totally mad?

No one can truly know another's thoughts, but I'm pretty sure that when Mr. Kaepernick knelt during the National Anthem he was not expressing his respect for America and her flag. I'm equally confident that the manufacturer of the new shoes sees this as a way to express love for flag and country—giving no thought to the idea that the flags thereon would soon be worn on the feet and dragged through the dirt.

I care nothing for Nike (their shoes are out of my price range) and no more for Kaepernick than is required of me by my claim to be a Christian (usually less, I'm afraid—but I can't blame him for my own fault). But it was firmly impressed on me as a child that kneeling is the ultimate gesture of respect, save only for complete prostration, and that wearing the flag as an article of clothing—let alone footwear!—is disrespect beyond the pale.  I believe that attitude has the force of history behind it.

It's at this point that my inner cynic rises up and declaims, "A plague on both their houses!" How can we hope to communicate when words and symbols have inverted their meanings?

Having recently emerged from a long labor, I am again amazed at how like childbirth is the creative endeavor.

The creative endeavor in question was a new book. Not that kind of book, I hasten to assure my friends and relatives who are published authors. My speciality is Shutterfly photo books—primarily for our grandchildren—with titles like The Art of Frederic Edwin Church, The Cantons of Switzerland, and Grandma and Dad-o Visit the Gambia. But if my artistic efforts are on a small scale, they are nonetheless artistic efforts, and extraordinarily like that highest of creative works of which mankind is capable, the co-creation with God of a unique human being.

As usual, this book began with nothing but a joyful idea and a due date: I had an offer for a "free" (pay only for shipping & tax) Shutterfly book with an expiration date of June 30. At that point I had no idea what the book would be about, just that it would be. The project perked along happily in the back of my mind as I occasionally thought about possibilities and laid the groundwork. Ah, the early days, when the delivery date seems so far away! I had plenty of time, and expected an easy "pregnancy."

As happens all too often, life took some unexpected turns, some good, some bad. Complications developed.

We had planned a major trip in May and June, which always plays havoc with my projects, but in this case there were two time periods in which I thought I could count on quiet time for some intense work. During our New Hampshire visit, all of the family but me were to have gone on a four-day camping trip, leaving me alone in the house to create. Later, during the Connecticut portion of our trip, we were to be there a full week before the main event, and our plans were simple: Porter—talk with his dad, work around the house, and play board games with his sister; Linda—work on this project! Almost two weeks of very little else to do? Surely I could accomplish much!

Yeah, right. First monkey wrench? Not long before the start of the trip, Porter experienced what turned out to be an intense sciatica attack. It was a miracle he was able to lie down flat for the MRI—which showed that his spine is a ticking bomb, ready to cripple him whenever the bulge hits the sciatic nerve. Despite this, we prepared for the trip in between medical necessities, and had some unexpected company (of the best kind!); in the end he was feeling well enough to want to make the trip. I wasn't so sure, but by another miracle he managed to make the long, long drive, only stopping more frequently than usual to rest and stretch. We arrived in New Hampshire only one day later than planned, and the camping trip was the following day! At that point, I felt I needed to be wherever Porter was, especially in a camping situation. We both decided to go, and it was great fun.

But there went the first writing session.

The second one was obliterated through two factors: (1) Porter's 92-year-old father became ill, and (2) we decided to bring two of our grandchildren with us when we left New Hampshire. So that week was spent on other activities—those more important than writing and those more fun. That's "fun" in the general sense—I find the creative process immensely satisfying, and yes, fun (most of the time), but not many agree.

When finally home (though not back to normal), I realized my due date was rapidly approaching and something had to be done about it. We all know that induced labors are more intense and painful than natural labors, and so it was in this case. Soon I was in my least favorite part of the book-creating process: wading through huge piles of data, making painful decision after painful decision necessary to make it all manageable. When the pain was at its worst I was ready to give up due to frustration and exhaustion. Of course, I was then in "transition," the point where laboring women are ready to jump out of windows—or defenestrate their husbands.

On to the blissful agony of the "pushing" stage, where the labor pains finally make obvious progress and the end is in sight. I had created the covers—for some reason, having the covers done makes everything else seem possible. I was on a roll. Only the necessities of life stopped me. I love this stage! The work was still tedious and painful: the process of making a photo page consists mainly in deciding what not to use, reluctantly casting aside photo after photo that just won't fit. To use another analogy, you can't make a sculpture without removing the wood or the stone, and the closer you get to the finished work, the more important and delicate each removal is. But oh the thrill as each page fell into place! Normally I'm good for nothing but sleep after nine o'clock at night. I blew past that mark, unheeding. Rarely do I work as efficiently and as effectively as I did that night, despite the lateness of the hour. Nine, ten, eleven, midnight—the hours passed and the pages slowly and steadily fell into place. It seemed nothing would stop me.

But finally, at 3:30 a.m., something did. My Shutterfly deal expired at midnight Pacific Time, and I still had four pages to go. Often, when I've barely beaten a deadline (never this late before!), once the deadline is actually past, Shutterfly will extend the offer by one more day. Not so this time, when I could have used it. By 3:30 it was clear that there was no point in pushing myself any further. I had another offer almost as good that didn't expire for another week. I went to bed at an hour very near to the time I often arise in the morning. Not since the birth of my firstborn had I worked through that much of the night.

The next day I was glad I had gone to bed, albeit for what turned out to be only a couple of hours' sleep, because there was still most of a day's worth of labor ahead of me. Of course, my sleep-deprived brain wasn't as efficient as it had been the night before! But I made it, and—after much more proofreading and editing than if I had finished the book at 2:55 the previous night—I clicked on the "Order" button and the baby was born!

And here's where the childbirth analogy breaks down. I won't actually have the book in my hands for at least a week, for one thing, and for another: with this particular book the pain is gone and the sleepless nights are done.

I chose the subject of this book for two reasons. One: I think it will bring delight to Porter's father, who could use some sunshine in his life right now. Two: since I could make it with no text, and I had plenty of appropriate photos at hand, I thought I could do the job quickly. I even thought of trying Shutterfly's feature where they take your photos and make them into a nice book for you. But I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. I have my standards, and I must tell the story myself. So be it.

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy died. I vividly remember a television commentor remarking that 60 people had also died that day in a horrific nursing home fire. In God's eyes, he admitted, those deaths were equally important, "but we are not God."

Death is all around us, every day. Some deaths move us more than others. To some extent, that's as it should be; if your own mother's death isn't more significant to you than the death of a random woman in South Dakota, there's something wrong with either you or your mother. I get that.

What I don't get is what moves the general media, and thus (sadly) the general population, to chose to highlight, amplify, and honor certain deaths for which most people have no personal connection. One child dies in a hurricane, and it's played over and over on the news. More than a dozen children die weekly in auto accidents, and rarely get airplay. Workplace or school shootings arouse great fear and anger, but gang-related violence is mostly ignored. The death of Travon Martin brought intense media attention from all over the world to Central Florida; the concurrent brutal death-and-burning of two young men on a bike trail nearby was all but ignored even by local media.

And then there are ostensibly minor events—like the Sandy Hook shooting, and Orlando's Pulse nightclub attack—which have taken on iconic status, with commemorations that amount to the feast days of some American secular religion.

I do understand that. Human nature, even that of hard-boiled atheists, needs a form of religion, and anything at all can spring into the vacuum created when more traditional forms of faith are abandoned. What I don't understand is why churches buy into it. I'm not even sure why churches celebrate Mother's Day, Veteran's Day, and other secular holidays—much less Super Bowl Sunday, which, no kidding, has been honored at some churches I've been in.

This is no commentary on what my own particular church does or does not do. I am on vacation in a place where the church celebrations are Pentecost and Trinity Sunday; I can't speak for what's going on back home. But if it's like previous years, churches all over Orlando will be talking about the Pulse attack, and tolling their bells 49 times. I don't think that's necessary, or even important. But for those churches who do choose to join in the secular remembrance, I have one plea:

Ring your bell 50 times.

You will hear again and again that 49 people died in the Pulse shooting. But the true number is 50. Any church calling itself by the Name of Christ must acknowledge that the 50th death—that of the attacker—is just as important, and just as tragic, as the other 49. As I wrote a year ago,

The natural way is not the Christian way. It is very, very clear that we are to love our enemies, which at the very least means mourning the violent, if necessary, death of this angry and unstable young man. He, as much as any of the other victims of this tragedy, was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's father, a human being, created in the image of God—no matter how distorted that image had become.

As that commentator acknowledged more than 50 years ago, we are not God. But if we are Christians, we should try to be more like him, and less like the world.

Variations on this article have been making the rounds on Facebook recently: "Should Arabic numerals be taught in schools? Most Americans say no." Briefly,

CivicScience, whose mission is to power the world’s opinions and bring them to the decision makers who care, asked 3,624 people if schools in America should teach Arabic numerals. By the numbers, 2,020 people said no, 1,043 people said yes and 561 people shared no opinion. In simpler terms, 56% of respondents said no, 29% said yes and 15% chose no opinion.

Perhaps the numeral system’s name exposed a bias among the respondents. Maybe they just didn’t know where our numeral system came from. Both could be true, but CivicScience CEO John Dick is calling it bigotry. “Ladies and Gentlemen: The saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we’ve ever seen in our data.”

I doubt it.

It's not the apparently negative findings about the American public that worry me, it's that the polling organization is creating polls clearly designed to show Americans to be ignorant and prejudiced. Then, they see what they want to see. For some reason, that sells.

Why is the immediate conclusion that those who rejected the idea of schools teaching Arabic numerals are bigots, and that they are reacting negatively because of the word “Arabic”? I can think of a few reasons off the top of my head that are at least as likely to be true:

• The polls were not set up in a way designed to get an honest, thoughtful response. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of surveys in my lifetime—and created a few—and I know it’s hard to make one that does not prejudice the data. Surveys designed by those with an axe to grind are particularly egregious.
• People who think our teachers are already overtaxed, people who believe our schools are already being asked to do too much, and people who say schools are not being very successful in what they teach as it is, are automatically choosing “no” to what is presented as if it were something being added to the current educational program.
• People are hearing “Arabic numerals” and thinking “Roman numerals,” which they vaguely remember from elementary school and consider to have been a waste of time and effort. This is the most likely scenario. 
• People recognize the question as ridiculous, and are having fun with the pollsters. Don't underestimate this possibility.

It takes little thought and minimal charity to come up with conclusions that treat people with respect. Isn't this what we would want done for us? Why do we immediately assume the worst?

Of all the Seven Deadly Sins, Pride fittingly takes pride of place as the one considered the worst by most Christians, though Lust seems to get the most publicity. Today, Envy is making the headlines. It seems that the fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame touched many hearts and opened many wallets, including those of some very wealthy people and corporations.

Naturally, this generosity has caused a nasty backlash.

As I wrote a couple of years ago, I never have understood why people hate the rich. I'll admit I don't seek them out, as a class, even though our summer vacations often throw us into the midst of people who are very wealthy indeed, because we seem to have very little in common. (Who am I kidding? The real reason I don't seek out our wealthy neighbors is the same reason I don't seek out our poor neighbors: I'm an introvert and very happy filling my time with the family and friends I already have. But the other sounds better.) I have observed, however, that most people with wealth work incredibly hard, put many, many more hours into their work than I ever wanted to, and often accomplish more for the general good than I can dream of. That's hard to hate. But maybe the real reason there's no temptation for me to hate the rich is that I do not envy them their lifestyles.

I suspect Envy has an awful lot to do with the backlash, even if it's couched in seemingly compassionate terms. How else to explain this comment, from an article in The Guardian?

We should also be asking ... why those generous donors are so averse to giving their money to democratically chosen priorities, which is what taxes represent. If the ultra-rich can chuck in so many millions of euros for a building, then what stops them ending hunger and poverty?

Why? I can think of a couple of really obvious answers.

Why would the rich rather support a cherished cause directly rather than pay more taxes? For the same reason anyone would. Instead of me giving to Charity A, you tell me you will take my money, keep some of it for yourself, then give the rest to Charities B, C, D, and E—and you expect me to be happy about it? I don't think so. There are good reasons for paying taxes, but this is not one of them.

What stops the super-rich from ending hunger and poverty? Perhaps because money is one of the least reliable means of doing so. When you give money to rebuild a cathedral, in a few years the cathedral is rebuilt and stands there till the next disaster. It's a simple, satisfying equation. Take that same money and give it to an organization trying to end hunger and poverty, and you may make a little progress, or you may not. Ask Bill Gates. You may even end up doing more harm than good. It's a much more complicated equation, and you may never see the results of your contribution, because anything that isn't a band-aid approach (feed a chronically hungry person today and he's hungry again tomorrow) is difficult to do right and takes a long time to show sustainable results. There are good reasons to make wise donations to organizations of proven reliability that have shown some success in lifting communities out of poverty, but if you take all their money from all the billionaires in the world you won't solve the problem—and then where will you get your next billions?

There is only one question worth asking when it comes to giving money, and it's not, "Why don't others use their money the way I think they should?" It's "Am I being both generous and wise with the money that has been entrusted to me?"

It's Easter, and I'm writing about a different holiday.

Why? Simply and solely because the Easter post I want to write would be far too much work for the remainder of a day of rest after an exhilarating but exhausting week. I will celebrate Easter by not writing about it—yet.  Besides, Easter is not one day, but a 50-day season, so I have some time.

On March 25 of this year, our church celebrated the Annunciation. To the best of my recollection, that's the first time, in all of our many and varied churches, that we have done so.

That celebration set off an interesting train of thought.

It's usually around Christmastime that my thoughts turn especially to the Incarnation. As I've said before, for years I unthinkingly accepted the idea that Easter should be more important to Christians than Christmas. After all, the resurrection of Christ is the one spectacular event on which Christianity stands or falls.

Or is it? If it is unique and astonishing that a man so clearly dead should in three days be so clearly alive, and alive in such a new way that he has a physical body (that can be touched, and fed) and yet comes and goes through space in a manner more befitting science fiction—is it any less unique and astonishing that God, the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, should enter his world as a human being, not in the shape-shifting ways of the Greek gods, but through physical birth, with human limitations? I finally concluded that debating which holiday is more significant for a Christian is like asking whether my left or my right leg is more important for running.

But now comes a new holiday into the mix: Annunciation. Obviously the birth of Jesus is still an important and awesome (in the literal sense) holiday. But if we're celebrating the Incarnation, aren't we about nine months too late? Figuring Jesus was conceived about the time of the Annunciation—ít's no coincidence that the feast day is celebrated nine months before Christmas—if we're celebrating the Incarnation, this would be it. So why is this holiday almost unheard of in most Protestant circles?

Thus I have some questions for other Christians:

• If your church believes, as I do, that conception is the defining moment in the creation of a unique human being, but does not celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, why not?
• If your church believes that the defining moment in the creation of a unique human being is at some point other than conception, what is that point, and how does it affect your view of the Incarnation?

In over 66 years on this planet, more than two-thirds of them as a professing Christian, I have never asked myself these questions. I am astounded at my ignorance. To be fair to myself, I've never heard anyone else ask them either.

I read it in the Orlando Sentinel, on page 10 of the front section of today's paper, part of an article entitled, "Will census show Latino boom?"

And people wonder why I don't trust the mainstream media. Part of me still retains a small hope that professional news organizations—like our local newspaper—have more of a chance of getting the news right than the average Internet source, but they keep taxing my credulity. Here's the latest.

[E]xperts say the typical hurdles for an accurate census have been aggravated by a controversial question proposed by the Trump administration—"Is this person a citizen of the United States?"—that some fear will dissuade non-citizens from participating.

"The biggest barrier is one that the Trump administration has created," [attorney Tom] Wolf said. "This would mark the first time in American history that the census would try to ascertain the citizenship status of the entire country."

The emphasis is mine. Tom Wolf is "an attorney who specializes in the census and redistricting at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York." Specializes in the census? I suppose I could give him the benefit of the doubt and allow that perhaps he was wildly misquoted—but I'm skeptical.

From my genealogical work, I knew he was wrong: citizenship questions had been asked before. What I didn't know until I looked it up again was just how wrong he was. Check out the following census years:

1870

• Is the person a male citizen of the United States of 21 years or upwards?

 1890

• Is the person naturalized?
• Has the person taken naturalization papers out?

 1900

• What year did the person immigrate to the United States?
• How many years has the person been in the United States?
• Is the person naturalized?

1910

• Year of immigration to the United States
• Is the person naturalized or an alien?

1920

• Year of immigration to the United States
• Is the person naturalized or alien?
• If naturalized, what was the year of naturalization?

1930

• Year of immigration into the United States
• Is the person naturalized or an alien?

1940

• If foreign born, is the person a citizen?

1950

• If foreign born, is the person naturalized?

1970

From 1970 on, the census stopped asking all the questions of everyone—only a small percentage of households received the long form with the interesting questions. Speaking as a genealogist, that was a very big mistake.

• For persons born in a foreign country—Is the person naturalized?
• When did the person come to the United States to stay?

1980

• Is this person a naturalized citizen of the United States?
• When did this person come the United States to stay?

1990

• Is this person a citizen of the United States?
• If this person was not born in the United States, when did this person come to the United States to stay?

2000

• Is this person a citizen of the United States?

2010

In 2010 the short census form had a mere 10 questions, and the long form was replaced by the annual American Community Survey. The ACS asked questions about citizenship.

So, Mr. Wolf is correct if he only considers the censuses taken from 1960 onward. But he ignores eight censuses in which the country did, indeed, "try to ascertain the citizenship status of the entire country." The proposed question is hardly something new.

The U. S. Federal Census has often asked nosy and sometimes peculiar questions, such as

• Is the person deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic?
• Can the person read?
• Was, on the day of the enumerator's visit, the person sick or disabled so as to be unable to attend to ordinary business or duties? If so, what was the sickness or disability?
• For mothers, how many children has the person had? and How many of those children are living?
• Is the person's home owned or rented? If it is owned, is the person's home owned free or mortgaged?
• Is the person a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy?
• Person's father's mother tongue
• Is the person an employer, a salary or wage worker, or working on his own account?
• Does the household own a radio?
• Number of weeks worked in the year
• What is the highest grade this person has attended in school?
• How did this person get to work last week?

There was a time in my life when I was disgusted with the census for asking such personal questions. But now I see them as an invaluable glimpse into the world of my ancestors—and our country's history. I grieve that the names of all household members don't show up until 1850, and that most of the country has been excluded from the interesting questions since 1970.

I don't see how the Sentinel has a leg to stand on with its statement that the census has never before asked the citizenship of all the country's inhabitants. Why I continue to believe so much of what I read boggles my mind.  Maybe for the same reason I agree to all those End User License Agreements.

How can anybody think that they're better than anyone else—that their race is better, their country is better, their religion is better, their people are better....or even that their sport teams are better?

With that, a friend began a heartfelt plea for love and compassion that anyone could shout "amen!" to. But while I add my voice to the chorus, I take exception to his idea that the divisions, wars, hatred, and other evils that beset us are caused by the belief that something special and peculiar to an individual is better than other things of the same sort. I grant that it can appear to be true, but am utterly and completely convinced of this: It is not this belief, this feeling, that is wrong, but rather a twisted, diseased, misuse of it. It's rather like saying, "Money is the root of all evil" when the Biblical text is actually, "The love of money is the root of all evil."

I'm certain my friend thinks his own wife is "the best." And so he should. if he doesn't, he's a lout and a cad and doesn't deserve her. My own grandchildren are the sweetest and smartest grandchildren ever. I love my country more than any other place on earth, closely followed by Switzerland, my country-in-law My husband is the greatest, and there could never be parents and siblings as fantastic as my own. I appreciate many cultures, but like best the immediate culture in which I grew up, and the Western European culture that is my inheritance. This is not a bad thing. In fact, it is very good. In the words we say in church every Monday night, "It is meet and right so to do."

Why? Why do I say it's good to think the best of what is near and dear to us, when that seems to cause such divisiveness?

Because it's the only way to learn the love we so desperately need.

In the words of the Bible again, "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." Or in my own words: Don't pretend you love strangers halfway across the world if you can't even be kind to your spouse.

Love is meant to work outwards, from our families to friends to communities to those more and more "other" to us. We're not meant to start from the outside and work in, because we don't know what love is until we've practiced it small and local. You might as well expect to go from couch potato one day to ultramarathon runner the next. The special feelings that we have about our own particular "small and local" are our coaches, teaching us the skills of love in action and building our endurance.

Where we go wrong is in not taking that training into ever-widening circles. The wise man can hold in his mind without contradiction both the belief that his own wife is the best in the world, and the knowledge that every other man feels (or should feel) the same way about his own wife. That is exactly how it should be, and both are absolutely right.

Our local affections are meant to lead us onward and outward. If instead they become ingrown, they fester and rot. As C. S. Lewis said, the better and higher something is, the farther it falls and the worse it becomes when it goes bad. But the original is good.

It is from a secure feeling of "home" that we can truly value that which is different from our small and local world. I want to learn about French wines from someone who thinks there is no better wine than that which grows from French soil. I want to tour a new country guided by one whose family has known and loved its culture for generations. I'd rather not eat at a restaurant where the chef believes his food to be no better than average. And I certainly would be more comfortable in the company of someone who thinks her husband is the most wonderful man ever, than with someone who entertains the notion that maybe my husband would be a better choice.

Go ahead, love your own family, your own culture, your own country, your own heritage, even your own sports team better than any other.^* Then go, have a good laugh with your neighbor, and learn why he feels the same about his family, culture, country, heritage, and sports team. Therein lies joy, and hope.

March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day.

Temple Grandin wrote:

It is likely that genius is an abnormality. If the genes that cause autism and other disorders such as manic-depression were eliminated, the world might be left to boring conformists with few creative ideas.

Down Syndrome is not genius, at least not in the intellectual sense. If I could wave my hand and eliminate that third copy of the 21st chromosome, I imagine I would do so. But would that be a good thing? The more I hear from families of children with Down Syndrome, the more I wonder if these people have something important to offer the world that shouldn't be thrown away.

Even if eliminating the genetic defect that results in Down Syndrome would be best for all concerned, I know for a fact that eugenics is not the right way to effect a cure.

The population of people with Down Syndrome is diminishing rapidly, not because someone has cured the condition, nor found a way to prevent its occurrence, but simply because more and more babies with Down Syndrome are killed before they have a chance to be born. Prenatal testing to determine the presence of that extra chromosome is widespread, and more and more parents are opting for abortion rather than meet this challenge.

It's not my place, here, to judge another person's response to a difficulty I have never faced. But as a society we need to be aware of exactly what we are doing. There have been other times in our history when we have made deliberate efforts to eradicate the "unfit," and those actions have been rightly condemned by subsequent generations.