Lift Up Your Hearts!

U.S.A. Today recently printed an excellent editorial in support of saving large hunks of taxpayer money by replacing the one dollar bill entirely with dollar coins.  What do I mean by "excellent"?  (1) They got the facts right, which is not nearly as common an occurrence as it should be, and (2) they agree with me.

What happens when an atheistic science fiction writer becomes a Christian?  You get Christian blog posts with attitude, such as John C. Wright's response to the rationale behind an anti-Christian ad campaign planned for the Christmas season.  As an atheist-turned-Christian science fiction fan, I find the fantasy-style metamorphosis both delightful and amusing.  An excerpt:

I realize that, now that I am on the opposing side, I have no more right to feel contempt for weakness in the ranks, but, by Jupiter's holy lightning-flinging scrotum, this kind of whiny talk used to really bug me, and I still suffer flashbacks to my old self. How can you feel lonely during Christs' Mass when YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN CHRIST??!! The crowd of lemmings is rushing off after the Pied Piper to worship the Unseen Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you are feeling all lonesome because you are not in the crowd? Who wants to be in any crowd when the crowd is mad? 

(more, simlar ranting, followed by)

As a Xtian, I have to be nice and kind, and invite in to our cheerful feasts and celebrations the poor, the tired, and the unbelieving. All are welcome to partake of the spirit of Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Man, even if you don't believe in spirits. A lamp is lifted for you by the open door: within, the feast is spread. Come, and be fed.

Young Mathematicians at Work:  Constructing Number Sense, Addition, and Subtraction, by Catherine Twomey Fosnott and Maarten Dolk (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NY, 2001)

I must return this book to the library today, and I don't have time to finish reading it, but nonethless it deserves mention.  This joint effort of American and Dutch mathematics educators is often repetitive and sometimes wearisome to read, but includes ideas well worth exploring by anyone desiring to teach, or to learn, mathematics at its most basic levels.  Their strategies for encouraging children to think mathematically are aimed at classrooom teachers—and show, incidentally, some of the advantages of group instruction—but many should be adaptable to home education as well.

When I learned of this book I had intended to order it as a Christmas present for our grandkids.  (I know what you're thinking—such an odd grandmother!)  However, while it is a great book to learn from, it's not that exciting a book to own.  So do what I did, and turn to your favorite library—Interlibrary Loan, if necessary.

Distributism, as an economic philosophy, is totally new to me.  (My decision to circumvent Pennsylvania's high school graduation requirement of a course in economics, which I ditched in favor of AP physics, continues to haunt me.)  I came upon it while looking for a good G. K. Chesterton link for my O God of Earth and Altar post; Chesterton was one of distributism's more vocal proponents.

Since one obviously doesn't hear much about it, distributism may be outmoded, impractical, unworkable, or just plain wrong; I don't have time to learn more about it now, and Li'l Writer Guy is still chanting with the monks.  However, I find it most intriguing, since at first glance it accords well with my own philosophies, bringing together such diversities as homeschooling, home birth, home cheesemaking, family farms, independent businesses, public transportation, artisan breads, adn above all recognition of the family unit as the basic structure of society.  Here are some quotes from the Wikipedia article:

According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (socialism) or wealthy private individuals (capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton's statement: "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists."

Distributism puts great emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function which can be performed by a smaller unit.

Distributism sees the trinitarian human family of one male, one female, and their children as the central and primary social unit of human ordering and the principal unit of a functioning distributist society and civilization. This unit is also the basis of a multi-generational extended family, which is embedded in socially as well as genetically inter-related communities, nations, etc., and ultimately in the whole human family past, present and future. The economic system of a society should therefore be focussed primarily on the flourishing of the family unit, but not in isolation: at the appropriate level of family context, as is intended in the principle of subsidiarity.

And here are two excellent essays I found in my brief meanderings, both from the Dallas Morning News, September 23, 2007:

Patrick Deneen:  There's a Lesson in Europe's Gardens, Woodpiles and Chickens

Allan Carlson:  Here's a Way for America to Give It a Shot

Enjoy!

I checked the date of the article; it's not April 1.  Mexican physicists have made diamonds from tequila.  One can only speculate how they came up with the idea of heating tequila to around 800 degrees celsius and turning the resultant carbon atoms into an extremely thin diamond film, but it might make a good comic routine.  Uses for the diamond film include the manufacture of ultra-fine cutting instruments, and as an alternative to silicon in computer chips.

The scientists found that even the cheapest of tequila brands, averaging at $3 a bottle, are good enough to make diamonds.

 The cost of an 800-degree oven might keep this from becoming a do-it-yourself project, however.

Maybe commenter Phil had the right idea after all.  Since the government is bound to foul up even the best plan when it involves too much money and power, doing nothing might have been the better course.  We had a liquidity crisis from which we probably could have recovered with relative ease had the government bought up massive amounts of undervalued bank debt and sold it at a profit when stability returned.  That would have been a $700 million investment, not a bailout.

Instead, we're all but nationalizing our banks, and now Paulson wants to turn this into a bona fide bailout, pouring money into credit card debt, which must be the worst possible kind short of getting involved with a Mafia moneylender.  (A friend's credit card company, which recently raised his interest rate to thirty-four percent, might be taking lessons from the Mafia, except that his kneecaps are still intact.)  I know we can't change immediately from a society based on massive debt to something more sane, but do we have to discourage reasonable behavior?

It's like Florida taxing people who know better than to build high-rise condominiums on the beach to support those who don't care if a hurricane blows down the building as long as the state continues to underwrite insurance for them.

Thanks to Janet's question about one of my favorite hymn tunes, LLANGLOFFAN, I was reminded this morning of one of my favorite hymns, O God of Earth and Altar, with its amazing and always-timely words by G. K. Chesterton.  (KINGS' LYNN is another great tune for this hymn.) 

I'd hate to see local bookstores go out of business, even chain stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Nothing long-distance and electronic will ever replace the atmosphere of a physical store, and the ability to wander, browse, and hold a book in your own hands.  However, I am also one of Amazon.com's more loyal customers, and not solely for their discounts.  Frequently both Borders and Barnes and Noble will send me coupons that I would love to use in their local stores.  Borders is an easy walk from our house, and I could easily be a frequent shopper there.

Except for one problem:  they rarely have what I'm looking for.  This morning I received a 30% off coupon offer with pleasure, because there's a book that I thought to buy only after sending of my most recent Amazon order.  It's a children's book, and not an obscure one, so I figured the odds of my convenient Borders having it were great.  But alas, no.  It does no good for the sales clerk to suggest that he order the book for me; I can do that myself.  It's rather like calling a reference librarian, having exhausted my own resources, only to hear her typing my question into Google.

Too often, also, the stores not only don't stock what I'd like to buy, but fill their stores with items I most definitely would not like to buy.  The experience is similar to that I've had at so-called farmers' markets, which were populated more by gourmet popcorn stands and vitamin sellers than fresh, local produce.

Regardless, I'm thankful for Amazon and other online sellers.  The local stores are worse-stocked now, but they never did have much of what I was looking for.  How wonderful to have such resources available now for a few clicks (and a credit card).

It must often be so...when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King)

 Thank you, all veterans and current members of our armed forces.

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (Book of Common Prayer, American Episcopal Church, 1979)

Games are a traditional part of our family gatherings.  On any given occasion you are likely to find games in process as varied as Lord of the Rings Risk, Settlers of Catan, pinochle, Quiddler, and n-tuple sol, and a long-time family favorite, Boggle (the 5x5 version, of course).  Because one of our number is the perennial, unassailable Boggle champion, I need to stay in practice to be any kind of competitor at all.  To this end I occasionally indulge in an Internet version of the came, called WordSplay.

There's some fierce competition out there, and I'm usually happy when I find myself around the 50% mark at the end of a game.  Once I almost made it into the top 10 and was elated.  (It helps to play at odd hours, such as early on a Saturday morning, when the number of opponents I face is much smaller.)  This morning I saw my name in third place, only one point shy of the top score, and can't resist reporting the accomplishment.

This is how I know that our own Boggle Champion wasn't playing the game. 

Curbing the time I spend writing doesn't mean there won't be new posts; rather, you'll get less of me and more of links to interesting things I find.  Here's one in honor of recently-deceased Michael Crichton, author of (among many others) The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and Five Patients: The Hospital Explained; you probably have not heard of the last one, but it was my introduction to Crichton and the only of his books to reside in our library.

Aliens Cause Global Warming.  Check it out with an open mind.  Crichton's purpose isn't to tell you (or his Cal Tech audience) there's no other intelligent life in the universe, or that atomic bombs and second-hand smoke are safe, or that there's no such thing as global warming.  His concern is that our approach to all these issues (and many more) is that of false prophets, taking the name of Science in vain.  (Since apparently Science was Crichton's god, you can see why this would be particularly upsetting to him.)  We are invoking Science to back the positions we want to support when in fact there is no truly scientific evidence undergirding our conclusions.   The Priests of Science are allowing this to happen, even participating in the abominations, and Science's lesser worshippers follow blindly.  If Crichton cannot cleanse the temple, perhaps he can at least clear our minds.

My own fears about an Obama presidency and a heavily Democratic Congress notwithstanding, I can see one factor in his election that may do much for both the economy and the country:  Hope.  Gripe as I may about the messianic adulation of Barack Obama, there are a lot of folks who are happy right now, and people who had all but given up on the American political process who now believe in it.  Confidence in the system and hope for a better life can be powerful forces for good. 

(Li'l Writer Guy is even now on an airplane, winging his way toward the French Alps.  I can still manage short posts on my own, however.)

I don't expect my resolve to last long, but I'm going to attempt to put a gag on Li'l Writer Guy.  I love to write, and there's always a large backlog of issues, large and small, on which my mind is constantly spewing forth essay fragments.  Crafting them into some coherent form and publishing the result usually offers some relief, but recent political and philosophical discussions (of which what is published is but the tip of the iceberg) have instead left me enervated.

When I consider the long hours it takes to get my thoughts into shareable form, hours that have much more pressing needs tugging insistently at their sleeves, I'm thinking Li'l Writer Guy needs to spend some time with the Carthusian monks.

Like it or not, our country has placed itself under the threats I mentioned in Part I, and I can only hope that the mitigating factors of Part II will enable me to say, at the end of four years, "That wasn't so bad."  Regardless, although I believe the results of this election will make life more difficult, the important things do not change.  Here's some of what I believe we need to do in the coming years.

Who is the "we" in the following ruminations?  Mostly I'm speaking for myself, to myself, but often there will be a more general application, anyone who wishes to come along for the ride is welcome.

Part III — How We Can Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
       while in a foreign land? 
Psalm 137:1-4

First of all, we pick ourselves up with as much dignity as we have remaining and give respect and support to our new leaders.  "Fear God, honor the king" (I Peter 2:17) applies in a democracy, too.  Humor has an important place in discourse, but mean-spirited mockery does not.  I may have crossed the line with my "Obamanation" comment in Part I—at least two of my respected readers think so—though I'm not convinced it's inappropriate, given the messianic adulation accorded Obama by many of his followers.  Still, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the abuse heaped on George W. Bush, just as I was when it was Bill Clinton on the receiving end, and will accord Barack Obama the respect due the President of the United States, as well as that due a human being created in the image of God.

We pray for Barack Obama, and for all "who bear the authority of government."  If the Apostle Paul could write, per I Timothy 2:1-2, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made....for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness," while living under the Roman Emperor Nero, we can do the same living under an elected president who is not likely to include among his alternative energy polices the burning of living, human torches.

We attempt to live our lives in the best, most honest, most noble, and most loving way possible.  Back to I Peter again (2:15-16): "[I]t is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.  Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God."  The Republicans would do well to remember that scandal and wrong-doing among office holders has done more than anything else to bring them down.   Granted, it's not fair that the Democrats mostly get a pass for their equal or greater sins—although it's actually a compliment that better behavior is expected of Republicans—but the reality is that Republicans were hurt badly first by misbehavior and even more by not visiting swift and sure justice upon the miscreants.  To live purely and act rightly, with justice and love and in quiet confidence, will win more hearts than the most reasoned argument.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone....  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  (Romans 12:17-18, 21)

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.  (Philippians 2:14-15)

[L]et your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:16).

We attend to the wisdom of the serpent as well as the harmlessness of the dove.  Now is not the time to retreat from the political process, but to be all the more involved that we might be alert to dangers that threaten what we hold dear, and to how we might best meet those threats. History has proven that when we are caught unaware we react hastily, badly, and often ineffectively.

We don't flee to the hills, or to another country (as many threatened after losing the 2000 and 2004 elections), or withdraw from the system in sulky silence.  It's not time, yet, for "those who are in Judea to flee to the mountains."  If we feel like exiles in our own land, it is time to remember what God said to his people at the time of another exile: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.  Increase in number there; do not decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:5-7).  We continue to live our lives wisely and without fear.  The administration may have changed, but the basic rules of life have not.  There's still the Big Ten—don't steal, don't murder, don't mess with someone else's spouse, and all the rest—and the sound-bite version provided by Jesus:  "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, [and] love your neighbor as yourself."

Many of us are accustomed to feeling alienated from the general American culture; it may even be easier—or at least clearer—when there's no pretense that "our guys" are in charge.  Whether it's financial responsibility, ethical behavior, or wise decision-making, in a democracy the citizens get no better from their government than the majority lives out in their lives.   True progress, then, requires that we balance a deliberate counter-cultural structuring of our own lives, families, and communities with a creative engagement of the larger culture.  That is how we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land.

Part II — Some Mitigating Factors

As I said in Part I, the prospect of the next four years under Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress disturbs me greatly.  The following are some of the reasons why the outcome of the election might not matter as much as I fear.

• The President of the United States never has as much power as we fear—or he would like.  Presidents acquire both credit and blame they don't deserve, for events set in motion long before they took office, or determined by forces over which they have no control.  Their campaign promises may tell us about their philosophies and their hopes (or they may not), but presidents by and large are at the mercy of legislators, judges, the press, public opinion, and a host of natural phenomena and international situations beyond their purview.  This is a good thing.


• I have yet to find a strong positive correlation between a president's apparent potential and his performance.  Ronald Reagan was an actor, once uttered the infamous statement, "A tree's a tree; how many of them to you need to look at?" and his wife consulted horoscopes, yet his presidency encompassed some of the best years in my experience, both domestically and internationally.  Bill Clinton's sexual proclivities made a mockery of the office, he lied under oath, and he threatened to take the country on a far-leftward swing complete with nationalized medical care, yet if you look at reality rather than rhetoric you could make a case that George W. Bush was the more liberal president.  True, some of Clinton's success came from riding on the coattails of what was accomplished under Reagan, and his administration is probably to blame for some of the conditions that led to our problems with al-Qaeda, and certainly much of the reason he was not the Liberal success many had hoped for lies in Republican opposition in the Legislature—still, the point is that his time in office was not the unmitigated disaster many—including me—had feared.  Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, are stellar examples of how good men, with strong morals and a determination to do the right thing in all of life, from the bedroom to the war room, can still be really lousy presidents.  I may yet look back on an Obama presidency and say, "This wasn't as bad as I had expected."  I doubt it, but you never know.


• George W. Bush did not want to spend most of his presidency embroiled in a war, and whoever wins today's election did not want to spend most of his presidency weighed down by economic woes, but such realities arise and force presidents to set aside their own agendas.  Unfortunately, they can also be a smokescreen through which really bad policies are slipped past our distracted eyes, so vigilance is still the order of the day.  Our next president must deal not only with the troubling economic situation at home and abroad, but may face political and military challenges most of us would rather not contemplate.  Any hopes that our only significant threat comes from Islamic terrorists and rogue dictators of minor countries are foolish at best.  Russia is beginning to flex its muscles in a way more frightening than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as for China—J. R. R. Tolkien said it best:  It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.  We attempt to elect the best person for the job, yet the job rarely turns out to be what we expect.  Sometimes presidents rise above themselves when the occasion demands.


• One of the advantages of being a Christian is knowing that God's plans can never be thwarted, not by the President of the United States and not even by the Supreme Court.  The election results may make our paths more difficult, but they won't change the ultimate direction, and God will be with us through each turning.  But that is the subject of Part III.