Pros and Cons of Open Mouth Communication

I love to say what I mean. As an adult that ability has been severely hindered by me having developed a sense of conscience and empathy. There must, however, come a time when the things that are difficult to hear must be said. When is that time? How do we know when it's time to risk hurt feelings for the sake of betterment? I can't figure it out.

Arrogance gets his

Jeremy Piven, you can't just go around with a look on your face like everyone else smells bad. It will make people hate you.

Good Times

Wearing my motorcycle helmet, trying to make me believe he's not doing the same thing he does every night; try to take over the world!

















She's eight now. Eight. If I could help her a thousandth as much as she's helped me, that'd be saying something.












Megan won't let me take her picture. Let this represent the laughs we share together. The patience and the love, the smiles and the sadness that is this life. I could never have been what I am without her belief in me; or without her strength.

What's on my mind

Project: Our storm door has managed to completely tear itself from our door frame, as it's been threatening to do for a couple of months. Now I get to figure out how to remove the remaining storm door frame and then install a regular screen door in it's place. This will be delicate as, if you look closely you can see, the West side of the door frame has already been damaged. My goal will be not to cause additional damage. We are prepared this spring, after almost four years of doing no improvements to our home, to tackle some projects. The door issue will clearly be the first one, but many others remain. In my order of priority: getting a backyard fence so we can get a dog; painting the entire upstairs interior (minus the kids' rooms which have been done, but including stripping wallpaper in the bathroom); making bookshelves; replacing the pieces of Masonite siding which have succumbed to water damage; carpet/flooring issues in the front room and kitchen; fixing the door jamb from the kitchen out to the garage; fixing the garage door opener; refinishing the deck; replacing the windows (one by one); this list is longer than I thought, and probably sufficient. I doubt that most of this can be afforded the necessary time or money during 2009, but I'd love to have it all done this year.

Diet: On Thanksgiving day I weighed myself (pre-meal) and I was right at 170 pounds. I'm 5'4" and have weighed between 120 and 130 for most of my adult life (okay since 14, at which time I stopped growing). Needless to say, 170 is out of my comfort zone and also out of my healthy zone. The charts I read say that for my age and height I hould really try to be between 140 and 150 (turns out I was too skinny as a teen/young adult). So in good reactionary form, I swore that after the Thanksgiving festivities I would replace my soda and beer consumption with tea and wine. I tried to do this for a couple of weeks, but it wasn't working. Ultimately, I decided that I like being a beer snob more than I like being a loyal Coca-Cola drinker, so the tea stayed and the beer came back. As of this week, I'm slightly below 160 because of giving up the soda, and taking smaller portions at mealtime. I plan to, but have not yet, make a point of being a little more active this year as well. I'm confident that by maintaining my changes and adding some activity, I can get down to 140-150, which is my goal. Wish me luck!

Religion: We had a beautiful service in church today where we assigned adult mentors to some of the youth in our church and said a blessing over the mentor/mentee process. What I loved about this is that Shalom doesn't create this process in the self-righteous "we have all the answers" style that has been such a big part of religion in my life. I believe the most important part of religion in a life is the continuous question. I am turned off by the movement in Western Christianity that discourages active questioning because it's a sign of weak faith. This idea was reflected wonderfully by the service wherein statements were made about not having all the answers, and about deep questions in the past, present and future of the kids' and the adults' lives. Such a stigma has been attached to the term mysticism, but it seems to me that mysticism is exactly the context in which we should consider an all-powerful God.

John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (2008)

Ok. I'm going to try not to review this book, as I'm not finished. However, now that I've finished the chapters on John Lennon's childhood, let me critique some methodology. Norman gives emotional and personal details about Lennon, his parents Alf and Julia, Alf's brother and his wife, Julia's three sisters and their husbands, Julia's parents and other relatives. Norman also gives detailed accounts of life in British seaports during about a 60 year span, day-to-day details of the most mundane but specific nature, as well as reports on how seamen were tracked, hired and fired. Let me say, as a history major, that he does all of this without a single reference or the merest shred of a bibliography. Anyone who could possibly corroborate Norman's version of the story is dead. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt (for now) on his observations of life in a British port because I'm assuming that reasonably done research would turn up evidence that supports most of his characterizations (although I hope I can someday do that research and find that he was completely wrong). But how am I to believe any of it when he has the audacity to put it out there in print without so much as a scanty bibliography to prove he didn't just make it up?

I'm not accusing him of presenting fiction as fact as has been in the news lately, I'm simply asking, "How hard can it be to show your sources?" The Beatles (which as it happens were the event that made Lennon's story printworthy anyway) were a social, musical, cultural force that helped to change the course of modern history (as I see it). Why doesn't anyone take writing about them as a serious academic pursuit? There is no good cultural or social history existing in print. Why not? All we get is this arrogant and melodramatic drivel, complete with a jacket note that has the author lauding his own qualifications as a Beatle biographer.

So far, so lazy, Mr. Norman.

Further discussion

So why title my blog based on what I shouldn’t be versus what I should? After all, let’s keep it positive, right? Well, first of all, it’s not that I’m particularly less qualified to be king than most other people. Nor is it that I actually think someone should be king at all. Really it’s just a mantra based on the adage attributed to Thomas Aquinas: Seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish. This is the guiding principle of the convocation series at my Alma mater, Bethel College in North Newton, KS. Bethel College changed my life while I was there and this Aquinas quote is one of the many things that I’ve striven to use in my life since I graduated from college.

The concept is pretty easy to understand: don’t accept things as truth just because somebody or somebodies you trust told you; don’t dismiss as false that which you don’t understand or trust; in all things, seek to distinguish truth for yourself.

In practice, however, this is an altogether different issue. We all take solace and comfort in those things we “know” to be true. We’re all uncomfortable with the unknown, with stepping outside the box, and with the revelation that we don’t “know” something. Therefore, taking time and risk to consider new points-of-view or new knowledge that challenges our comfortable beliefs feels intensely dangerous and we all fear to call our comfort zones into question. But we must. We must.

Some have suggested that accepting new ideas, credos and ideologies is equivalent to standing for nothing, often canonized as “stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” This could not be less accurate. To strive for a life of distinguishment is to stand for truth; that being “we all have truths, are mine the same as yours?”
It is difficult when the tenets of so many political, ideological, religious (etc) 0rganizations require almost blind acceptance. Everyone claims to have the real truth and acceptance of their truth as such is the only way to assure your patriotism, or reputation, or your eternal salvation or any combination of those and others.

So what it really boils down to is this: find out for yourself. Don’t take it on someone else’s word for their truth is their own and cannot serve to inform the path on which you travel.

Happy New Year.

Here it is. A major undertaking for 2009. Megan has convinced me that I should blog so I’ve chosen to create a wordpress account. I’ve titled it “I shouldn’t be king” because I expect to explore a lot of opinions and positions that reinforce that very point. Besides that, when debating politics and religion, I often offer two points of view: that of my mythical kingdom, and that of the way I know things should be.

We’ve just ordered a new camera in order to stop borrowing Mary’s (Megan’s mom) so once we get that I look forward to posting pictures of the fam and the house etc.

I begin this blog in the context of a mixed up world. Continued murder in Gaza, the impending financial ruin of perhaps the whole world, the prediction of a nuclear war in the next 10 years (can’t remember where I read that), Jayhawk basketball and bowl games all rule the day. My beautiful children, Maggie and Lennon, are 8 and 3, respectively, and Megan and I are in our early thirties and just starting to feel grown up.

So I guess my goal will be at least one post per day, although perhaps this will turn into a constructive (?) replacement for my Facebook addiction.

Here’s to the New Year, may it bring us peace.