Lift Up Your Hearts!

Unplanned
The Movie

About once a year or so we actually go out to a theater and watch a movie. I knew I wanted to see Unplanned, and did not have any confidence that it would eventually make it to Netflix. So Porter bought tickets online for our local AMC theater, and we made a date of it.

"Date" is an appropriate word, because despite the seriousness of the subject and a couple of horrifying scenes that probably earned it its "R" rating, Unplanned is basically a love story: The unconditional love of parents for a child who has made lifestyle choices in complete opposition to their own deeply-held values; the steadfast love of a man in support of his wife despite his conviction that her chosen career path is an immoral one; the love that leads us to embrace our common humanity in the face of chasmic differences; and the relentless love of God for his hurting world—"unresting, unhasting, and silent as light."

Abby Johnson's desire to make a difference in the world, to support the rights of women, and to help women in crisis situations led her, beginning as a student volunteer at the local Planned Parenthood clinic, to a promising career with that organization. She became one of the youngest-ever clinic directors, and won an Employee of the Year award in 2008.

And then that same heart-felt desire to help women led her to quit. Unplanned is her story.

The story is well told. The movie is beautiful—except of course where it's ugly. I particularly like the fact that it is not a black-and-white, one-dimensional story of a sudden conversion, despite the "what she saw changed everything" subtitle. As much as can be done in a movie less than two hours in length, we see Abby's growth through time and experience. Her change of heart seems more of a tipping point than a crisis, though there are certainly elements of the latter as well. Abby at the end of the movie is more knowledgeable, more experienced, certainly less naïve, and moving in a different direction in more than one area of her life—but still Abby.

The only fault I find is the portrayal of Abby's boss, who is indeed one-dimensional; we never see her human side. It reminds me of what C. S. Lewis said about George MacDonald, that he was rare among authors in being able to portray good much better than evil: "His saints live; his villains are stagey." It's certainly possible that this woman was as nasty as she seems, and as I said, it's a short movie, but I would like to have seen something redeeming about her character.

Do I recommend seeing Unplanned when you have the chance? Absolutely, 100%, a hundred times over. Do I recommend it for our grandchildren? Eventually. They're all under age for the rating at this point, anyway. Maybe the oldest one or two could handle it well, if their parents watch the film first and agree. Anyone younger than that would be traumatized, maybe scarred for life—if they understood it at all. At first I wondered about the R rating, given the horrible things I've seen in PG-13 movies, but I believe the MPAA got it right in this case. Unplanned is a beautiful movie, and an important one, but there's no denying that it's disturbing in a way no child should be asked to handle. Not that so many kids haven't already seen worse. And it's rather bizarre to require parental consent for a child watch a movie with a few abortion scenes, when that same child could actually have an abortion without it.

The Abolition of Man: or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools by C. S. Lewis (Macmillan, 1978; originally published 1947)

Don't be put off by the occasional dated and UK-based references: this is very important material, definitely still applicable today. It is a good book to read either before or after That Hideous Strength, the third book in Lewis's space trilogy, in which the same ideas appear in the form of fiction. You must also get over Lewis's use of the term Tao. You can see why he uses it, but the meaning is not exactly the same as in Chinese philosophy. 

As the review is short, so the quotations are few. Lewis is not easily reduced to sound bites. The bolded emphasis is mine, though I'm not sure it's a good idea, because it separates them from their context, which is just as important.

From Chapter 1, "Men Without Chests"

I doubt whether [the authors of a particular English literature textbook] really planned, under cover of teaching English, to propagate their philosophy. I think they have slipped into it for the following reasons. In the first place, literary criticism is difficult, and what they actually do is very much easier. To explain why a bad treatment of some basic human emotion is bad literature is, if we exclude all question-begging attacks on the emotion itself, a very hard thing to do. ... To "debunk" the emotion on the basis of a commonplace rationalism, is within almost anyone's capacity. In the second place, I think [they] may have honestly misunderstood the pressing educational need of the moment. They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda ... and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of the young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. ... The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.

Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence, or our contempt. 

Where the old [education] initiated, the new merely "conditions." The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly: the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds—making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men: the new is merely propaganda.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that "a gentleman does not cheat," than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. ... Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the "spirited element." The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat ... of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest—Magnanimity—Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal. The operation of [this textbook] and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests.

And all this time...we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

From Chapter 2, "The Way"

[The authors of this textbook] will be found to hold, with complete uncritical dogmatism, the whole system of values which happened to be in vogue among moderately educated young men of the professional classes during the period between the two wars [World War I and World War II]. Their scepticism about values is on the surface: it is for use on other people's values: about the values current in their own set they are not nearly sceptical enough. And this phenomenon is very usual. A great many of those tho "debunk" traditional or (as they would say) "sentimental"values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process.

This thing which I have for convenience called the Tao, and which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There never has been, and never will be, a radically new judgement of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) "ideologies," all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess. If my duty to my parents is a superstition, then so is my duty to posterity. If justice is a superstition, then so is my duty to my country or my race. If the pursuit of scientific knowledge is a real value, then so is conjugal fidelity. The rebellion of new ideologies against the Tao is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.

From Chapter 3, "The Abolition of Man"

In what sense is man the possessor of increasing power over Nature?

Let us consider three typical examples: the aeroplane, the wireless, and the contraceptive. In a civilized community, in peace-time, anyone who can pay for them may use these things. But it cannot strictly be said that when he does so he is exercising his own proper or individual power over Nature. If I pay you to carry me, I am not therefore myself a strong man. Any or all of the three things I have mentioned can be withheld from some men by other men—by those who sell, or those who allow the sale, or those who own the sources of production, or those who make the goods. What we call Man’s power is, in reality, a power possessed by some men which they may, or may not, allow other men to profit by. Again, as regards the powers manifested in the aeroplane or the wireless, Man is as much the patient or subject as the possessor, since he is the target both for bombs and for propaganda. And as regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please. In all ages, no doubt, nurture and instruction have, in some sense, attempted to exercise this power. But the situation to which we must look forward will be novel in two respects. In the first place, the power will be enormously increased. Hitherto the plans of educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted and indeed, when we read them—how Plato would have every infant “a bastard nursed in a bureau”, and Elyot would have the boy see no men before the age of seven and, after that, no women, and how Locke wants children to have leaky shoes and no turn for poetry—we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.

Miracles: A Preliminary Study by C. S. Lewis (Macmillan Books, 1978; first published 1947)

This is another book in my C. S. Lewis retrospective. It's hard to imagine that it has probably been 40 years or so since I read Miracles. I can't be sure, since I began keeping track of my reading only in 2010, but the book is covered with clear contact paper, a practice I used in college and for a little while thereafter. The cover is clean and almost new, but protecting it did not help the binding—many of the pages are falling out and I think I'm due for an upgrade.

If you're looking for a book full of examples of purported miracles—faith-healing stories out of Africa, perhaps, or an examination of testimonies from Lourdes—this is not your book. Lewis's approach is much more academic and philosophical, from careful definition of terms, to examination of the presuppositions inherent in different worldviews, to analysis of the type and function of various miracles in Christianity.

For me, the book started slowly, a bit of a slog. Lewis spends a great deal of time laying the philosophical groundwork for his study of miracles. Philosophy makes my head spin more than physics ever did, and I don't pretend to have a clear grasp of all his arguments. But I can testify that the end of the book is well worth the work at the beginning. The last three chapters, the Epilogue, and the two appendices are especially worthwhile. Here's the Table of Contents:

I didn't mark many quotations this time, and almost none in my favorite chapters—not because there was little worthwhile, but because it all hangs together in a way I find difficult to dissect into independent pieces. But here are a few.

From "Answers to Misgivings"

It is no accident that parents and schoolmasters so often tell us that they can stand any vice rather than lying, the lie being the only defensive weapon of the child.

If we are content to go back and become humble plain men obeying tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her [that is, for wisdom] himself is fatal. A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. 

From "A Chapter Not Strictly Necessary"

Everything becomes different when we recognize that Nature is a creature, a created thing, with its own particular tang or flavour…. It is not in her, but in Something far beyond her, that all lines meet and all contrasts are explained. It is no more baffling that the creature called Nature should be both fair and cruel than that the first man you meet in the train should be a dishonest grocer and a kind husband. For she is not the Absolute: she is one of the creatures, with her good points and her bad points and her own unmistakable flavour running through them all.

To say that God has created her is not to say that she is unreal, but precisely that she is real. Would you make God less creative than Shakespeare or Dickens? ... The theologians certainly tell us that He created Nature freely. They mean that He was not forced to do so by any external necessity. But we must not interpret freedom negatively, as if Nature were a mere construction of parts arbitrarily stuck together. God's creative freedom is to be conceived as the freedom of a poet: the freedom to create a consistent, positive thing with its own inimitable flavour.

From "Christianity and 'Religion'"

We who defend Christianity find ourselves constantly opposed not by the irreligion of our hearers but by their real religion. Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all things, a common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalized spirituality to which we can all flow, and you will command friendly interest. But the temperature drops as soon as you mention a God who has purposes and performs particular actions, who does one thing and not another, a concrete, choosing, commanding, prohibiting God with a determinate character. People become embarrassed or angry. Such a conception seems to them primitive and crude and even irreverent. The popular "religion" excludes miracles because it excludes the "living God" of Christianity and believes instead in a kind of God who obviously would not do miracles, or indeed anything else.

The stillness in which the mystics approach [God] is intent and alert—at the opposite pole from sleep or reverie.

From "The Grand Miracle"

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and “occupation.” The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle; all discussion of them in isolation from it is futile.

Despite our general antipathy to most forms of rock music, there's one rock concert we try to attend whenever we have annual Disney passes: when Air Supply comes to EPCOT. Recently they performed as part of the Garden Rocks concert series for the Flower & Garden Festival, so we headed to the park for an afternoon of food and fun.

Here's what we sampled this year, with brief comments. Overall much better than the offerings at the Food & Wine Festival, though mostly because they are new and different.

• Fried Green Tomatoes with Blue Crab-fennel Salad, Remoulade and Smoked Paprika Oil — delicious!
• Tuna Tataki with Spicy Yuzu Glaze, Mango, Avocado and Pappadam Crisp — very good
• Citrus Shortcake: Orange Chiffon Cake, Lemon Curd, Mandarins, Whipped Cream, Citrus Crumble — absolutely awesome
• Tropical Freeze (non-alcoholic frozen drink with tropical fruit, including mangos and pineapple) — excellent, good balance of flavors
• Honey Tandoori Chicken Flatbread with White Cheddar Cheese, Charred Vegetables, Clover Honey Sour Cream and Micro Citrus Greens — good
• Local Wildflower Honey-mascarpone Cheesecake with Orange Blossom Honey Ice Cream garnished with Fennel Pollen Meringue Kisses and Petite Lavender Shoots — delicious, and the honey was a gorgeous golden color filled with sparkles (pollen?) that shone in the sun
• Vegetable Spring Rolls — okay, but you can get better at almost any Chinese restaurant
• Toasted Pretzel Bread topped with Black Forest Ham and Melted Gruyère Cheese — yummy
• Chilled Soba Noodle Salad with Pan-seared Tuna and Wasabi Dressing — good, but the Tuna Tataki was better
• Canard Confit à la Provençal: Braised Duck Confit with Tomatoes and Olives on Polenta — good but not memorable
• Earl Grey Tea Cake with Orange-Honey Filling topped with Honeybell Tangelo Buttercream, Honeycomb, and Bee Pollen — fantastic!

No visit to EPCOT would be complete without relaxing in a cool, darkened theater and enjoying Impressions de France, but that's the only ride we did. That's what happens when you can freely visit more often that you want to, and don't have children or grandchildren with you.

Soon enough it was time to head over to the American Gardens Theater and watch Mirko Tessandori (and Those Other Guys) perform. This video was taken from my seat, but actually is a better view than we had because of the zoom. It's just a snippet, but you get the idea.

Here are some mindblowing statistics: Air Supply has been touring for fourty-four years, and this was their 5060th concert. I wonder if after that long, living from hotel room to hotel room, all over the world, begins to feel normal.

It's always good to see friends and family doing what they love. I even attend basketball games when our grandson is playing. :) And I love to hear Mirko in action, albeit it is more fun in an interactive, smaller setting.

It took a long time for me to dip my toes into the DNA testing waters, being both an avid genealogist and a very private person. But just as giving birth changed my relationship to modesty, starting a blog changed my relationship to privacy. I'm still both modest and private, but not in the same way. The biggest obstacle to DNA testing was knowing I was dragging my family along. As recent events have shown, criminal behavior (and other indiscretions) can be found out by DNA through relatives' information available on genealogy websites.

But I discovered long ago that privacy as we knew it is dead. I remember working with a family researcher who was writing a book on one side of our family. At one time, I would have refused to contribute any information, but had since been helped so much in my research by a book on the Wightman Family that I wanted to help others the same way. The Wightman book, incidentally, has information on me and our family that was contributed without my knowledge or consent. At the time I was not happy, but I got over that and now appreciate it. Except for where the data is wrong....

The point, however, is that while such direct contributions help researchers, they're not all that necessary. When one of my family members declined to contribute his family's information to the project I was helping with, the researcher understood his reluctance—but he added, "Let me show you the information I've already obtained from public sources." He already had just about everything he could use. As Illya Kuryakin Dr. Mallard said on NCIS last night, The Internet will be the death of us. Or at least of privacy.

In light of all this, Porter and I each decided to submit a sample to AncestryDNA.com, and eagerly awaited the results. Later we uploaded the DNA data to MyHeritage.com, and eventually gave another sample to 23andMe.com—the latter for both the ancestry and the health screening.

This post is not for a detailed analysis of the results, but an overall impression of the value of the DNA testing. First, from the point of view of genealogy.

For us, the Ancestry.com screening was the most useful. This is for two reasons.

• They have the largest database from which to work, and that is what makes the testing useful—comparing your DNA to that of other populations. For this reason it is also most useful for those of European background, because of the large numbers of that population who have participated. The testing services are working to improve the experience for under-represented populations, but for now the data is not so robust.
• I have uploaded our family tree, with its nearly 15,000 individuals, to Ancestry.com, and that's largely what makes their DNA service helpful for genealogy. This gives context to our DNA matches, and I've already confirmed known relatives while learning of several more. My tree is at the moment private on Ancestry, which means people have to ask me about the information, which is a good way to get to meet them. Someday I will make it, or at least a version of it, public, but the tree itself isn't ready for that exposure yet.

No doubt MyHeritage would be more useful if I put a tree up there as well, but that's on the "Someday/Maybe" list. I only uploaded our data because at the time they gave free access to their resources if you did. So far they've only found us "third-to-fifth cousins"—tons of them—which is not of much use without trees to compare, and most people seem to have no trees or very small ones. Third cousins share a great-great-grandfather, so it requires a significant amount of family history knowledge to make the connection.

23andMe is in the same situation as far as genealogy goes. So far nothing found even as close as second cousin (sharing a great-grandfather).

How has this helped my genealogy research? Well, through Ancestry.com I've connected with a few previously unknown cousins, a couple close enough to be useful in sharing information. Even the ones that are more distant have been useful in providing some confirmation of my research. Overall I'm glad I took the plunge, if only for this reason. It also has a lot of potential for more and better information as time goes on. One important caveat: There is a lot of error in online family trees. Even with DNA support, this information is best taken as inspiration for further research, and for mutual sharing of data sources.

Now for what most people want out of DNA testing: heritage and ethnicity information. This is an estimate only, and each company has its own data and algorithm for making its "best guess." Sometime after we had our samples analyzed, Ancestry.com upgraded their system and re-analyzed our data. The results were not terribly much different from the first attempt, though probably more accurate.

The analysis from MyHeritage was closer to Ancestry's original analysis. That from 23andMe was different from any of the others, though quite similar overall.

My impression? The DNA analysis is very good as an overall picture, not so good on the details. For example, Porter's great-grandparents came to the United States from Sweden, and it is well known where they lived before emigrating. In fact, when his dad visited Sweden, he was told he looks just like people who live in that area. Thus when his father's AncestryDNA analysis came back showing his largest ethnicity to be Norwegian, we were taken aback. However, the area he's from may be called Sweden, but it's right on the border with Norway. One can definitely say from his DNA that he is of Scandinavian origin, but that he is specifically Swedish comes from genealogy. One must also remember that the smaller percentages are suspect: of the three analyses, 23andMe was the only one that gave me "broadly East Asian and Native American" ancestry, and that was at just 0.1%, so highly doubtful.

Finally, there's the analysis of genetic health data. This comes primarily from 23andMe, though we also paid an extra $10 post facto for Ancestry's "Traits" screening. I've written about the latter experience before. 23andMe analyzes many more traits than Ancestry's small sample, from "Leigh Syndrome, French Canadian Type" carrier status, to estimated risk for late-onset Alzheimer's Disease, to Lactose Intolerance, to Asparagus Odor Detection.

My thoughts? Interesting, but not quite ready for prime time. Where I have independent data it sometimes confirms, sometimes contradicts the DNA reports. Ancestry says I likely have a "unibrow" but 23andMe says the opposite. Both of them say I probably hate cilantro, and I love it. And so on. So I'm taking the rest of what they say with a few grains of salt. I'm sure there's something to it, and that the data will get better with time, but for now it is more entertainment than useful information. Actually, I take that back: Just as DNA ancestry data is useful as a starting point for further research, the discovery of certain traits might be useful for suggesting further, medical, genetic testing.

There's a lot more to DNA analysis for the serious genealogy researcher to investigate, such as sites that will take your data and give you tools to learn much more about which particular genes you and a DNA match share. I'm not there yet; I have too much to do with my regular research to explore that path further. But it, and my data, are there when I'm ready.

Am I glad I decided to "spit in the tube"? Absolutely; I'd do it again and may later go further with it. I'm very grateful to family members who have taken the plunge as well, because that provides a look at the puzzle from more angles. But it's always important not to expect too much. It's never as simple as trading your kilt for lederhosen, as the Ancestry.com ad blithely shows. Plus there's a risk of finding out things you don't want to know—about family or about health. It's a very personal decision and I understand those who are reluctant to take the risk.

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.

C. S. Lewis wrote about peer orientation?  Certainly not by that name.

But recently, as part of my C. S. Lewis retrospective, I came upon a passage in Mere Christianity that immediately brought to mind the epidemic of children taking their culture and direction from peers, rather than from parents or other adults, which has been going on in our society for at least three generations.

What Lewis was actually writing about was the central tenet of Christianity: what it is and what it is not.

The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start.  Theories as to how it did that are another matter.  A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work.

As part of his explanation of one of those theories, Lewis likens God's work in us—enabling us to repent, reason, and love—to a teacher who helps a child learn to write by holding the child's hand and forming the letters with him.  Later he writes [emphasis mine],

I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man, then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, "because it must have been so easy for Him." Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude and ungraciousness of this objection; what staggers me is the misunderstanding it betrays. In one sense, of course, those who make it are right. They have even understated their own case. The perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible only because He was God. But surely that is a very odd reason for not accepting them? The teacher is able to form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher; and only because it is easier for him can he help the child. If [the child] rejected him because "it’s easy for grown-ups" and waited to learn writing from another child who could not write ... (and so had no "unfair" advantage), [the student] would not get on very quickly. If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) "No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank"? That advantage—call it "unfair" if you like—is the only reason why he can be of any use to me. To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

Rejecting the help of those who are stronger than ourselves is what we have been doing for decades.  We turn for help and advice—for the very shaping of our lives—to our peers, and we not only tolerate, but encourage, the same in our children.  Unlike all generations before the 20th century, we do not acquire our culture from our parents, but from agemates who have no more experience, knowledge, and wisdom than we ourseves.  We ignore history, throwing out all mankind has learned from the beginning of human life on earth, on the grounds that the benighted, ignorant savages that came before us have nothing to say to our modern world.  The latest TED talk or Huffington Post article gets more respect and attention than the wisest writings of the past.

No wonder we're in a mess.

Sandwiched between 3:14 (Pi Day) and 3:17 (St. Patrick's Day) is

3:16 (Greatest Love Day)

John 3:16, that is.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

In honor of which I present this beautiful anthem, John Stainer's God So Loved the World. No, that's not our choir. But Porter and I have sung this many times and it's one of our favorites.

I've never seen the show, The Bachelor, never wanted to see it, still don't want to see it. But even I have to admit they did something right on their recent "live finale," whatever that was. Try to ignore the inanity.

Hear that piano? That's Mirko Tessandori. If you don't blink, you can even catch a few glimpses of him.

South African deep-sea diver Rainier Schimpf was diving with a crew that was documenting a sardine run in the waters east of Cape Town. Suddenly the water around him started churning, and he found himself sucked into the mouth of a Bryde whale. All was dark. He held his breath.

The whale later spat him out, unharmed.

“Nothing can actually prepare you for the event when you end up inside the whale," remarked Schimpf. Jonah would agree.

You can read the story and see photos here.

I appreciate living in this time and place. I know I've sometimes said that I think I was born in the wrong century, but in truth I'm glad to be in the era where we have antibiotics, smoke-free plane flights, and respect for women. That said, I'm shaking my head more and more at our modern American culture (and I'm not sure Europe is any better).

Born in the early 1950's; laboring through most of my education under dress codes that required me to wear a dress or a skirt to school every single day; learning from my voluminous childhood reading that boys are smart, strong, and have adventures, while girls are intellectually inferior, weak, and interested only in clothes and romance; having been the "first and only girl" in my Boy Scout Explorer troop, high school stage band, physics classes, and who knows what all else—I've witnessed quite a bit of change, much of it for the better, when it comes to how our society views men and women.

But now I think we've taken a few steps backward. A walk through the toy department in any major store reveals that children's toys are nearly as sex-stereotyped as they were when I was a child, and much more so than when our own children were young.

Even worse, if you deviate in interests, abilities, or goals from the norm for your sex, you're not just a bit odd—you risk being labelled "transgender" or at best "confused about your sexual identity."

Why can't we acknowledge, and celebrate, the fact that interests, abilities, and goals are broadly spread among males and females, without snipping that spectrum up into labels and diagnoses so that almost no one feels normal? The issue of making differences into diagnoses is much bigger than sex stereotyping, but the gender dimension happens to be especially big these days.

For example.

Here's an article about a Viking warrior's grave, assumed for more than a century to be that of a man; it was discovered in 2017 that the body is female.

When researchers announced in 2017 that the warrior was actually female, they received a lot of pushback—surely the archaeologists had made some mistake? Perhaps they tested the wrong body?

Now that's an attitude that could have been from the 1950's. A strong leader? Must have been male.

The following, however, is clearly from 2019:

The ensuing conversation raised questions about the role of women in Viking culture—as well as how Vikings understood gender identity. Unlike other Viking women buried with weapons, this person wasn’t wearing typical women’s clothing or jewelry.

“In this grave there is nothing that we archaeologically would interpret as female,” says [Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, who co-authored the 2017 paper about the discovery].... “It’s not a typically male costume either probably because it’s very high status…but there is nothing indicating a woman, there are no typical finds that we link to women.”

There is speculation, then, that the woman must have been "transgender," an issue the author addresses in a more recent paper.

As for the warrior’s gender identity, Hedenstierna-Jonson and her colleagues write, “There are many other possibilities across a wide gender spectrum, some perhaps unknown to us, but familiar to the people of the time.

“We do not discount any of them.”

So. In the 21st century we have moved on from the archaic idea that only men can be strong leaders, not women. But what have we moved on to? The idea that women still can't be strong leaders, because if you are a strong leader, you must be someone who isn't really female, but something closer to male on the spectrum.

Is that progress?  Not for women.

If you think backseat driving is annoying, you should try backseat navigating.

We were with a friend, driving through unfamiliar streets and anticipating a delicious Thai dinner. As the one with the shortest legs, I was in the back seat. I usually prefer that position, as both our friend and my husband enjoy keeping up a lively conversation and that's much more convenient if they're both in the front. In the back seat, I can read, or think, or just enjoy the ride, which is generally my preference.

But it doesn't work for navigating.

We had just entered a tricky part of the route, where many turns happened in a very short period of time. I tried to interrupt the above-mentioned lively conversation to give directions. Not only were they not listening to my directions, I became convinced they weren't even hearing me, since every time I jumped into a break in the flow of words, our friend would talk right over me.

Finally, in utter frustration, I raised my voice and cried, "CAN YOU ALL PLEASE STOP TALKING FOR A FEW MINUTES AND LISTEN TO MY DIRECTIONS?"

My husband slammed on the brakes and brought us to a screeching halt.

No harm was done: we were in a residential area and it was safe to stop. But chaos reigned and some not-so-happy words were exchanged for a few seconds.

It wasn't until we were at the restaurant waiting for our meal that some light was shed on what had happened there. Our friend was not being rude when he talked over me: he had left his hearing aid at home, and he truly did not know I was talking.

And it wasn't till we were home (after a delicious lunch) that I figured out why my husband had slammed on the brakes. I had thought he was angry. But picture the situation: You're driving on unfamiliar roads, you are trying to pay attention to someone with a loud voice who is talking in your right ear, and you aren't quite hearing what the softer voice is saying from behind you—until that voice suddenly becomes a shout: "CAN YOU ALL PLEASE STOP TALKING FOR A FEW MINUTES AND LISTEN TO MY DIRECTIONS?"

What does your brain hear?

It hears the one word, "STOP!"

In retrospect, it was funny—it just took us a while to realize that.

What did I learn?

• Just because someone raises her voice, it doesn't necessarily mean she's angry (though she might be a little bit)—maybe she's just trying to be heard.
• Just because someone doesn't respond to you, it doesn't necessarily mean he's rudely ignoring you—maybe he's hard of hearing.
• Just because someone does something that appears to be an outburst of temper, it doesn't necessarily mean he's reacting in anger (though he might be a little bit)—maybe he thinks he's responding to an emergency situation.

And one more thing: Don't try to navigate from the back seat.

Not long ago, Ancestry.com added a new feature to their DNA services, where for an additional $10 they will analyze your existing DNA sample for certain genetic traits. It's not nearly as extensive as that offered by 23andMe, but for $10 I thought it worth checking out.

The verdict? Interesting, of questionable use, somewhat confusing, and mildly amusing. I'm posting our results for the few family members who might be interested, and for anyone else who wonders what the $10 will get you.

Bear in mind that having the gene for a trait does not mean that you actually have that trait, since genetics is complicated! Many different genes may influence the trait, and environment is often a factor as well. As I understand it, current DNA tests can give you a good general picture, but not the whole story. As the site says,

Sometimes your trait doesn't match what your genes say—that's totally normal. Genes don't always tell the whole story.

What the Ancestry.com Traits testing told me I can often confirm—but not always. They hedge their conclusions with "probably" in most cases. I've listed what Ancestry says, followed by my commentary. In some cases this may be more information than you want to know; you have been warned.

• Cleft Chin Yes. I see no evidence thereof. Maybe too small to notice.
• Finger Length Index finger longer than ring finger. Maybe. It's hard to measure, and harder still when fingers are affected by arthritis.
• Earlobe Type Attached. I can confirm that.
• Earwax Type Wet. This one is more complicated than they make out, I'm certain. The two types are "Wet and sticky, yellowish to brown in color)" and "Dry and flaky (gray to tan in color)." Ancestry says, "Dry earwax is common in Asian and Native American populations. Just about everybody else has the wet variety. But in practice, I—with no measurable Asian or Native American ancestry—have primarily what they describe as "dry." But not exclusively: occasionally it's more like the wet, though not sticky, and nothing like that of others I know whose earwax is clearly of the wet-and-sticky variety. So there's a lot more going on here than a single genetic marker.
• Eye Color Light eyes. No surprise there—blue.
• Freckles No freckles. They got this right, too.
• Hair Color Lighter hair. Yep. Not now, but I was blonde as kid. My optometrist confirmed that: I have a blonde fundus. Even Miss Clairol can't fool an eye doctor.
• Hair Type Naturally wavy hair. Where did that come from? My hair is straight as can be. I remember my sister having somewhat wavy hair until her first haircut, so maybe I did then, too. But after that the only waves in my hair came from the painful overnight application of curlers—until my mother gave up on making me into someone who thought it reasonable to endure pain just to conform to society's standards of beauty. :)
• Hair Strand Thickness Average. I suppose so. Never thought about this one much. The gene variant for "thick hair" is "almost nonexistent in people of African and European descent," so when the hairdressers tell me (as they frequently do), "You sure have thick hair!" they must be talking about something else.
• Iris Patterns I should have furrows, crypts, and rings in my irises.  I'll take their word for it; I find it hard to tell, though my irises are certainly more complex than I thought.
• Male Hair Loss Low chance of hair loss. Too bad we didn't have sons; I hope our daughters inherited the gene (which their father has, too) and passed it on to their sons.
• Skin Pigmentation Light to medium skin tone. No surprise here.
• Unibrow Yes. Oops, they got that one wrong.
• Asparagus Metabolite Detection No. Well, half right As with the Earwax Type, it's more complicated than it seems. What they say, exactly, is this: your DNA suggests you might not notice a distinctive smell when you pee after eating asparagus. This is correct; I do not. However, they also say the following:

When your body digests asparagus, it produces a chemical called asparagusic acid, which breaks down into compounds that contain sulfur, which is notoriously stinky (think rotten eggs). Some people can smell this in their urine after eating asparagus; others can’t.

Scientists used to think that asparagus caused some people to produce bad-smelling urine, but it turns out that it’s probably not the stench but the ability to smell it that varies. The inability to smell is called “asparagus anosmia.”

I'm inclined to think that the new theory is wrong, since I cannot smell the distinctive odor in my own urine after eating asparagus, and neither can Porter. You might think that the quantities of asparagus eaten make a difference, but even when I eat a lot, we don't notice the smell, and when Porter eats the tiniest amount of asparagus, we both know it! So we can both smell it, but as far as we can tell, only he produces detectable "asparagus pee."

• Bitter Sensitivity No. This is a test for the ability to taste the bitterness in glucosinolates, which are common in vegetables like brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale. This may explain why I don't understand people who have an averson to kale....
• Cilantro Aversion Yes. Boy did they get this one wrong. I love, love, love cilantro! But my grandson may have received this gene, since he says cilantro tastes like stinkbugs. (Don't ask me how he knows the taste of stinkbugs.)
• Sweet Sensitivity More sensitive to sweets. If this is true, I taste sweet flavors more intensely than people without this variant. Maybe. I do find that baked goods like cakes and cookies can do with a lot less sugar than the recipe calls for. But that doesn't change the fact that I love sweetness!
• Savory (Umami) Sensitivity Less sensitive to umami, or savory flavors. Maybe this is why I never get "Chinese restaurant syndrome." I love the "umami" flavor in foods, but am not noticeably sensitive to monosodium glutamate (MSG).

I'll give an abbreviated version of Porter's results. For some reason, he has one more trait (Birth Weight), added recently, which I don't see in my results yet.

• Birth Weight average-sized newborn. His birth certificate doesn't have birth weight information, so we'll probably never know.
• Cleft Chin Yes. Wrong—as far as we can tell.
• Finger Length Index finger longer than ring finger. As far as he can tell, they are the same length.
• Earlobe Type Unattached. Wrong—Attached.
• Earwax Type Wet. Right.
• Eye Color Light eyes. Right—hazel.
• Freckles No freckles. Right.
• Hair Color Darker hair. Right.
• Hair Type Naturally wavy hair. Wrong.
• Hair Strand Thickness Average. Probably right.
• Iris Patterns He should have furrows and rings in his irises.  Who knows?
• Male Hair Loss Low chance of hair loss. Looks right so far. :)
• Skin Pigmentation Light to medium skin tone. Right.
• Unibrow No. Right.
• Asparagus Metabolite Detection Yes. Right.
• Bitter Sensitivity No. Probably right.
• Cilantro Aversion No.
• Sweet Sensitivity More sensitive to sweets.
• Savory (Umami) Sensitivity Less sensitive to umami, or savory flavors.

Verdict? I don't see any use for it, but it was a fair $10 (each) worth of entertainment, to have done once. Coming up? We grabbed a set of 23andMe tests on a Black Friday special, and finally sent them in recently. We'll see if they're any more enlightening.