The Chronicles of Rehab: Better Than Others

     I DISLOCATED MY SHOULDER WHILE SKIING THREE YEARS AGO. I NEVER HAD SURGERY ON THE SHOULDER BECAUSE I WAS CHEAP AND I COULD LIVE WITH IT. IT WASN'T IMPACTING MY DAY TO DAY LIFE. THIS PAST AUGUST I TORE MY ACL. IT IMMEDIATELY IMPACTED MY DAY TO DAY LIFE. I DECIDED TO OPERATE ON BOTH, IN THE SAME INSURANCE YEAR, SO THAT I COULD "BUY ONE GET ONE FREE" FOR SURGERIES AND REHAB. THESE EXPERIENCES WILL LIKELY DOMINATE THIS BLOG FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.

(another side note: I really thought, upon creation, that this blog would be more funny than serious or philosophical, but all of my funny keeps getting absorbed by my other blog. Oh well.)

     My students at LCC this term have been treated to an instructor who has had two surgeries in two months. On the first day of class, I limped in on a knee immobilizer (but at least was off crutches), and last week I walked in with a hefty, all-business sling. One of my students made this blunt, astute comment regarding my surgeries: "That's a real shot to your manhood."

     It really has been.

     All told, I am going to lose about a year (and two summers) to these injuries. They keep me from being able to work around the house, exercise, and now I can't play with my baby like I used to. It's been humbling and frustrating, and for the first time in my life I think I've had little bouts of depression.

     (After my shoulder surgery, my main thought has been "I am so glad I did this," just because I can't wait to have a stable, trustworthy shoulder again. So don't put me on a suicide watch list or anything.)

     A lot of people have offered me consolation along the lines of "well, it could be worse" and "there are plenty of people worse off than you." I find myself thinking through the logic of those sentiments. It's odd - maybe "terrible" is a better word - that comfort can be found in comparing one's self to those less fortunate. It's just the human condition I assume. But those statements imply that there are a select few individuals that can't be consoled. No one has it worse. It couldn't be worse. Is that possible?

Job not Gob

     This is where the term "of Biblical proportions" has great meaning to me. The Bible is filled with stories of extremes. King Solomon had access to all earthly comforts and desires and wasn't satisfied, Jesus lived a perfect life and died for sin, Paul was the top Christian-killer before his conversion, I can't think of anyone with a better claim to revenge than young David against King Saul, and Job lost everything - land, livestock, family, health - yet still praised God. These extremes make our mundane lives comfortable and easy by comparison, which I think is among God's goals with scripture.

     Even without the story of Job, my plight is not terribly severe. I have a loving wife, healthy baby, warm house, good job with good insurance, a friend from church who's a skilled surgeon, and supportive friends and family surrounding me. But Job sure helps me find perspective.

     "It could be worse" bothers me less than "there are plenty of people worse off than you." I liken it to the following scenario: when I chat with someone that has a casual belief in God and Heaven, they invariably state that they think they'll go to heaven because they are a good person. When I ask what they mean by "a good person," their response is typically not about the good things they do, but the bad things they don't do. "I just know there are people a lot worse than me. I don't kill or steal or do things like that."

     If one stops and thinks about it, this is a crappy, dickish way to determine who gets into heaven. It'd only be half of all the people, right? The good half? That sucks. It means, by default, billions of people have no shot at heaven. What's worse, you are taking somebody's spot!! If you were a good person, should you give that spot to someone else?

     This doesn't seem fair. Shouldn't heaven be fair? Maybe it's not the top 50% who get in, but the top 70%. Or 90%. Whatever percentage we land on, we are going to have the same quota problem, where a certain number of people have to go to hell (or go to "not heaven," or even "not the best level of heaven" if you are that soft on Hitler and his ilk). That's no good. Curving a class only helps people above the curve, it actually dooms those beneath it. That's only fair if those people deserve to fail already. So we really can't base our heaven-going status on relative goodness.

     So a universal standard of goodness must be applied. I think we can all agree on major things, like don't murder or steal or abuse your kids. But as we get down to the nitty-gritty of that line of thinking, it becomes a huge disaster. What about the hungry who have to steal to eat? What about killing out of self defense? What about people born with a genetic disposition towards anger, or alcoholism? What if someone's dad beat them, making them much more likely to beat their kids? It turns out that things beyond our control - our parents, environment, fortune, location, era, health, etc. - probably have a greater impact on our "goodness" than we do. This also does not seem fair - that those privileged in this life are more likely to be privileged in the next.

The 99% aren't good. Neither is that 1%.

      One could claim that God would know who was and wasn't a good enough person. He can obviously account for all of those factors that I just mentioned and make a fair judgement. But there's still a logical flaw in this logic. One only has to be good enough. One could balance their good with choice bad, to their advantage. Maybe doing intentional, calculated bad means that one is truly a bad person, but then I think that would make all of us bad people (for what it's worth, I think we are). I can't see a getting-into-heaven-system that doesn't accommodate anything but constantly pursuing good.

     I moved quickly from "my shoulder hurts" to "there are no good people." That's just how my brain works. I test an idea by taking it to its logical extremes, both enormous and minute. I think God is a God of logic. In fact, I think "logical" might be the best way to describe him, above all other terms. I'd like to take this moment to clarify that "logical" does not mean "simple" or "scientific." I think a lot of people confuse those.

     I appreciate condolences about my surgeries and injuries. I know people are well-intending, even when they call me old and broken. Apart from this short span I am super healthy and relatively injury-free. I am extremely blessed, and not just because my life is better than most. I believe that all people have the potential to be blessed, because it's not only offered to the good. Because there are no good. It's offered to all who are willing to take it, and it's called Jesus Christ.

"The Universe" in Film and Television

Wow! The cold, mathematically governed universe has a plan for us!

     There's this trend in entertainment media to talk about "The Universe." "The Universe" will find you a soul mate, or the Universe will provide you with a job or the Universe will magically unite you with your estranged siblings or the Universe is generally looking out for you. The Universe seems to have a plan and you are a big part of it. The Universe has a capital first letter.
     I find this very disingenuous. Or maybe it's naive. I understand that television shows and movies don't want to talk about God. Atheists and agnostics are a growing population, and professing a belief in God is becoming increasingly dangerous in today's cultural climate. But ascribing some intention, or motive, or even understanding to the big ol' universe (or nature, as it were) is undeniably absurd. Either the universe is full of planets and stars and not any sort of all-encompassing consciousness, or there is a God of some sort who knows enough, cares enough, and is powerful to unite the sympathetic lead character with her mom.
     I've tried to figure out why this is the case. (Let's be clear: when I say "I tried to figure out" that doesn't mean I did any sort of research. I am a blogger for crying out loud. It means "I couldn't sleep one night and thought about it.)" Originally, my assumption was that the people involved in making shows and movies aren't personally religious. Statistically that is unlikely, but it wouldn't surprise me that there is a push to pull God out of entertainment. God has become a loaded idea, with a lot of hatred and judgement and violence attached to it. Avoiding everything that could come with a "war on terror" that is really a "war on militant Islamists" makes sense, from an economic and political standpoint. Additionally, when was the last time you saw a consistent, strong God-fearing character that wasn't a caricature or jihadist trying to thwart Jack Bauer? Tyler Perry tries to make them I guess, but none of the "media elite" take him or his work seriously. This dearth of characters that reflect a significant portion of the viewing population strikes me as forced.


     But I think there's more to it. Invoking a God invokes not only judgement and hate (which, by the way, isn't really how it has to be), but it invokes morality and values that the media doesn't like to portray. It's hard to have your lead character trying to find a soul mate and wanting some direction (or some hope that there's a plan), but simultaneously showing him trying to get laid, drunk, and/or high every episode. You might not attach any morality to these actions, but the "God" that most people believe in does. It's pretty self-defeating to ask God to bring you your soul mate so the two of you can have sex and see if there's anything there, when God intended for sex to be between a man and a wife.
     So how can these characters still have faith in a plan, or the idea of a "soul mate" (which requires having a soul, which requires God - we can discuss that if you'd like), or some sense of destiny, when the cold hard universe alone provides none of these provisions? We give the universe a capital letter and hope no one cares. Or notices.

An example of a typical Christian character.

     It's probably Christian's fault that God is being pulled from entertainment. Christians are increasingly known for wanting to punch gay children and attacking abortionists, but I don't think that picture is accurate. Maybe I just hope it isn't. When I think of Christian characters on television or in movies, they are hypocritical, shallow, judgmental, or naive. They are usually the source of humor or conflict, not the source of conflict resolution.

50/50. Worth watching.

     You know where this idea first struck me? Of course you don't so I will tell you. Cara and I were watching the movie 50/50, a Judd Apatow flick about a guy that has cancer. (Tangent: I find Apatow's work to be incredibly honest and realistic, which - more than his humor - is in my opinion why he's so popular. The only Christian character of his that I can recall is Lindsay Weir's former-best-friend on Freaks and Geeks - Millie - who was a sweet and well-intentioning girl, but was very naive and eventually needed to experience her own rebellion like Lindsay did. I can't think of a single other God-fearing character.) There's a really heartbreaking scene in 50/50 where Adam (who has cancer) is dropped off at the hospital by his friend Kyle, to have an important surgery. The car is parked, Adam is about to get out, and Kyle says something utterly forgettable. I have in fact forgotten it. It was something like "see you after" or "well, here you go" or something. It struck me as sad and depressing that these friends had nothing more to offer each other (and of course Kyle would have liked to be more encouraging or supportive, but what can he do? He doesn't believe in God, so invoking any sort of plan or destiny - even from "The Universe" would have been just as hollow as saying "let's split the parking costs").
     It's a moment that any God-fearing individual can optimistically, encouragingly say "I will pray for you." And anyone going into surgery can appreciate that sentiment of prayer, even if they don't think it will make a practical difference.
     (Is that what it's like for people that don't believe in God? They have nothing, not even a weird idea like prayer, to offer someone when they are about to undergo an event that no one has any control over? That honestly sounds awful.)
     The movie has this depressing, stark reality that Adam has no hope. He's a classically Apatowian post-adolescent male with no apparent drive or ambition or conviction about life. He lives alone and dates a pretty awful girl. His friend uses his cancer to get them laid and get them weed. He's not in contact with his parents, for what he thinks are noble reasons (trying to avoid spoilers here because the movie is worth seeing), and even his psychologist is over-matched with him as a case. There is absolutely no hope, and there is absolutely no mention of The Universe or God or destiny or anything. Of course a character and setting like this can't exist on a sitcom or any sort of comedy - there's just no way an audience can keep watching the depressing world unfold.
     So, if Apatow's honest and consistent portrayal of a world full of death, sickness, loss, heartache and not God is accurate, but a show doesn't want to invoke God, they call forth on The Universe. Let the universe provide hope and a plan, while not judging the sex and the drugs.
     You get the point. I need to get ready for work. Let's sum things up by saying that I find this trend of calling upon "The Universe" to be fundamentally inconsistent, and that bothers me.

Time-Sensitive Prayers

Obligatory poster for a discussion on time travel... check.

     A while back some Chinese dudes informed us that it is not possible to travel back in time; the math doesn't add up. According to them, it might be possible to go forwards in time, but definitely not backwards (the article I link seems to think differently). I have known this for a long time, though, by this simple logic: If it was possible to travel back in time, then someone would have traveled back in time already. We'd know. He'd show up and say "Hey guys! It's possible! I did it! I traveled as far back in time as I felt safe, just so I could tell you that, hey! It's possible! It turns out all you have to do is have two video cameras recording each other as they record each other, and maybe a solar flare or something! Don't let McDonald's do that pink sludge thing they did-or-will-do for a while!!"
     I understand that logic isn't foolproof, but I think it's pretty close. I do have this one nagging question, though:

     Can prayer travel back in time?

     Do you ever tell someone you'll pray for them, and then forget about it? I have done this several times. One time I had a friend going in for surgery. I told him I'd pray for him during the surgery. I did not. I was probably doing something important like saving Princess Peach or not grading papers at the time. When I remembered that my friend was having surgery, it was like 4 hours after his surgery. I panicked. What do I do?
     Well, I prayed for him. "Dear God I hope his surgery went well."
     Then I thought about that prayer. "Dear God I hope his surgery went well." Besides the fact that it was pretty thin and almost selfish, it had one big problem: It was past tense. I was praying for something that already happened, hoping it happened in a certain way. Was that remotely valid? Did it accomplish anything? Was God laughing at me?
     I guess when I see someone who just came back from vacation, I say "I hope the weather was nice" or "I hope you had a good time." Those are sincere feelings and expressions. But at the same time, I am not trying to impact or change anything about their trip, I'm just expressing that I am pulling for them. Whereas, when I pray for someone's surgery, or job interview, or, I dunno, root canal, to go well, I believe at some level that prayer can actually make a difference in the events that unfold. That is fundamentally different from hoping that the sun was out yesterday.

     So I continued to think about that specific prayer, and prayer in general. Prayer is weird and I don't really get it. If I ask for something, often, and for the right reasons, in the right way, I might get what I ask for? If praying about something causes that thing to happen - and let's pretend that if I hadn't prayed for that thing than it wouldn't have happened - does that mean that prayer can change God's mind? Can God change his mind? Are there things of less consequence that God can decide on at the moment, while others are pretty set in stone?

     (In my opinion, for those last three questions: yes, yes and yes)

     So, say that Joe had a successful surgery. It was successful because so many wonderful, handsome people like myself were praying for him. Except I prayed for him after the fact. But God knew that I would pray for him, so Joe met his prayer quota. So God had the surgery go well at the last second. Whew! Good thing I still prayed even though I thought it was too late, huh!
     No, not a good thing. If I were to pray, today, that 9-11 never happened, it would still have happened. Or if I were to pray that I had never dislocated my shoulder, to grab a much smaller and more reasonable example, it still would have happened. In effect (while dealing with this "Joe" hypothetical), me praying for Joe's surgery didn't change the outcome of his surgery, the outcome of Joe's surgery dictated that I would pray for his surgery!! Don't you see! If God were to make a decision, based on a prayer that I had yet to make, He was really forcing me down a path that I would pray my prayers! What!? No free will!? I don't like that.
     Now, maybe I would have prayed anyways, and sure He could have known that, and thus counted the prayers for that surgery throughout time, but then shouldn't we just devote ourselves to praying for all things past, present, future, but especially in the past?
     What happens if I pray "God I pray I don't pray this prayer." ??

     Conclusion: My prayers cannot go back in time.

     That is okay, because I think the essence of prayer is the heart, and God knows my heart was with Joe, at some pathetically incompetent and selfish level. So even though I didn't pray for his surgery, God might have counted it anyways. Or He might not have cared.

     For what it's worth, I don't think God is looking for a prayer quota, or the right words or conditions for Him to agree to things we ask for. I think it's primarily a method for getting us to talk with Him. I think He just likes having us invite Him in our life. Like when my parents allowed me to be dead broke and starving hungry throughout college; they knew it would bring me home to ask for food and eat dinner, and they were still at point that they liked having me around. (They didn't think I was aware of this sordid little plot but I was.)

     So we cannot go back in time, and our prayers probably can't either. This is undoubtedly a good thing.

    Also, for what it's worth (FWIW as the kids say): I now, whenever I tell someone I will pray for them, pray for them right then. Like, as we are talking I think "Dear God I pray for that thing I just said I'd pray for."
    On a related note, I am not as good of a prarer as I used to be. (Isn't it weird how sometimes we say "pray-yer" and sometimes we say "prare?") So, I guess it's not surprising that I have to resort to praying for someone immediately, and in such a wanting fashion as "I pray for what I just said," but I'll get it back.

Anti-April

I have two questions: 1) Is this what spring is like in the rest of the world?
2) Could I get any lazier with the photos I grab off google?

     April is my least favorite month.

     It is the longest teaching month, in my opinion, because there are no holidays. Students start to get antsy for summer, but it is still to far away to really look forward to. Days get long, but it's still raining and gray out. I feel like April is one big, long holding pattern before summer really starts to roll around. I am glad it is only 30 days. I am glad it is almost half over.
     When you live in a place that gets one big burst of sun from June till the end of October in a good year, and from late July until early September in a bad year, you learn to really cherish the sunshine and warmth. Missing out on sunshine is a particularly devastating feeling, as I've mentioned before. That's part of why I became a teacher, so that I could have my summers off (as well as all of that stuff about raising the next generation and helping people with stuff and stuff). When April rolls around and you can see some sun and blue sky, but know it rarely lasts for more than 20 minutes at a time, it's a particularly tough tease to deal with.

     So today, with Cara at work all day, Wyatt scooting all over the floor entertaining himself, and me stuck trying to get some work done in a messy house, I found myself feeling nostalgic. I usually get nostalgic when the weather gets warmer. A few nights ago I tutored a college student on U of O campus. It was a warm spring night, just after a rain. It smelled great. There was energy on campus. People were young and having fun. I walked right by my old college house. I thought of all the nights where I started having fun at 10 pm, playing disc golf, or riding to a friend's house, or just riding along the bike path. College was fun, and it's over.

The view out my back yard this morning. At least there is one pretty
flowering bush. And the moss on that apple tree is coming in nicely. Do you notice how the sky blends in perfectly with the background of the blog? Wow. Long caption.

     I tutored some high school students as well. I don't miss high school much, but I had so much fun in those summers. Swimming and biking and playing and sleeping in and working late and counseling. I love summers. Will I ever get another one? I haven't had a great summer in a long, long time. I've been stuck in different towns without adventure friends and without cars. I've had to teach in the middle of the day, four days a week. I've had torn acl's keeping me on couches. I've camped maybe four times and rafted maybe two rivers in the past 5 summers. I used to call that July. The threat of not being able to play for another summer is looming, and depressing.

     I used to hate change. When I was young I made my best friends every summer counseling at camp. They were older and usually went of to college come September. The last week or two of camp even had that different feel, where we had to get fill-in counselors to make up for the college students who left, or the athletes who had daily doubles in August. On the last day of camp I wouldn't see them ever again. It saddened me.
     I've gotten over that loathing of change, though. I truly believe that the next stage of life is better than the last one if you let it be. Still, the lack of permanence in life is unsettling. Friends get jobs and move away. Wyatt will one day go to college, and he might not come back. It's at times like this that I find the comfort of a loving God and everlasting savior to be of immense importance. I take great comfort in knowing that one day I will be with Him and those I love forever. I just have to get through this life, really.

     Change is good when we go from April to August. Change is bad when October moves to January. But I can't try to live in a way where I only accept the good and the bad, I need to just make the best of the bad when it comes along. It turns out, that's easy to do when I have a beautiful wife, healthy baby, warm house and loving God. 

Seeing God in Your Experiences

     I once heard that people see God in a way that fits with their own experience. Specifically, artists see God as the "great artist in the sky," and architects see Him as "the great builder in the sky." If your job doesn't lend itself to that (i.e., He's not the great data enterer in the sky), then whatever you find important, or find meaning in, is where you might see Him. The great gardener, or great parent, or great grand-parent (ha!). You get the idea.
     This notion has stuck with me since then, probably because I found it to be true for me. I of course see God as "The Great Mathematician in the Sky." The difference between my view of Him and yours is that I think mine is more accurate.
     There are three traits associated with God at His most fundamental levels. He is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (all everywhere). Guess what! Mathematics pretty much contains all of those all-everything qualities as well!
     It's hard for me to convince someone that math is all powerful, because in and of itself it has no real power, but mathematics is both what governs all of our physical world and the primary tool that allows us to learn and discover anything and everything about existence. Since it applies to most everything, I call that darn-near omnipotent.
     The rules and logic of mathematics are quite literally inescapable. Wherever you go, 1 + 1 = 2, and whatever time period you are in you can solve an equation for x. This makes mathematics omnipresent.
     All knowing is a bit of a stretch, but I think it is still sensible. In terms of the hard sciences, everything that we think we discover, or have agreed upon to be a scientific truth must first be verified through mathematics. If the math isn't there, than the theory isn't either. The issue with this, and with all the sciences in my opinion, is that we are always learning more and more. We don't know if what we know now is the whole story or just a part of it. So I submit that mathematics are all knowing, we just don't know all mathematics.

     Calculus is tough to sum up as one main idea. If I had to, I would say it is the study of calculating the infinite. Finding the sums and products of numbers as they get infinitely big or infinitely small. I'd like to explain this real briefly, but to insert equations and fractions I have to use a diferent program, so the text size and style will change slightly, which I know is jarring. Please bear with me.

     The idea being, I can't actually calculate two-to-the-infinity. In fact, I can't even calculate two-to-the-really-really-big number (even 2^100 is absurdly huge). But since I can look at the smaller numbers, I can use those smaller numbers and the trends that I see appearing to know that if I could add up every possible term from one to infinity, they would add up to 1. I think that's cool.
     I can't truly comprehend infinity. If I could, it wouldn't really be infinite, now would it. I don't think there is a better word to describe God than the word infinite. This means that I can't truly comprehend God. If I could, He wouldn't really be God, now would He.
     But! When I started to wrap my ahead around this calculus idea - that I could determine what happens as things get infinitely big or infinitely small, I suddenly started to realize that I could understand God in a similar fashion. I can't understand the infinite depth of His power, presence or knowledge, but what I see in little pieces can give me a clue as to the larger trends. This might not be a radical idea (in fact I think it's really the only option), but the fact that I was able to do it with math excited me.
     I began to really dive into my studies. In college I did three things: play super smash brothers, play ultimate, and study math. I felt like the more I learned about math the more I was learning about God. I still do, and I eat it up every chance I get.

     Well, enter some random guy who informs me that everyone sees God in a fashion that fits their experiences. The great whatever in the sky. It turns out what I was doing with mathematics, everyone can do with everything. I'd felt that by learning more about math I was learning more about God because I felt like mathematics had some special insight into God's character. It turns out that everything points to God. The more we learn about science and humanity and art and nature and batman, the more we are learning about God.
     (I still do feel that math has special insight into who God is - more so that most other disciplines - because I think if God is bound by anything it is logic. I was once asked at a Bible study if there was anything God couldn't do. My reply was "Of course there is. He can't do anything that isn't logically consistent. Meaning, He can't simultaneously do something and not do that same thing." I think logic (and by extension mathematics) is an integral part of His character. I know there are smarter people than me that have thought about this, and I think the idea relates to His nature and His administration, but I don't know.)
   
     So whatever you are doing, if you do it to your fullest, you are glorifying God. I find that relieving.

Helping People Move Like Jesus

     Have you ever heard of the notion that it is impossible to do a truly selfless act? The idea is, whatever you do to help someone else will inevitably help you somehow too. Maybe it makes you feel good, or someone owes you a favor, or you get a reward of some kind. For example. if we give food to the homeless on the street we ease our guilt about there being homeless people on the street.
     Apparently it was the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (read as JACKwah Da-ree-dah with your nose up in the air) who first proposed this heartwarming nugget of truth. He went on, if the internets are to be believed, to state the only way completely selfless acts are possible is to give your life to something (or for someone), and that Jesus himself performed that act.

     Well, I thought I'd found something that disproved his theory: helping people move. I hate helping people move. It's boring, it takes an eternity to complete, the job is never finished, it is frustrating trying to move couches through doorways, and nothing ever has a handle to grab. You move stuff from the house to the truck, then from the truck back to another house. You might get rewarded with pizza.
     I will help friends move, and do it with a smile on my face, because they are friends. Friends helped me move. I understand that's how it works. But one time I was called by my friend John to help a stranger move. Someone I'd never met before, who went to a different church and wasn't really in need of help (he was moving things to his summer home in SunRiver -- just hire some movers!).
     I hadn't seen John in a while, had nothing going on that day, and figured I should help. John said "It should just be a couple of hours," which of course means it will take three days. We picked up the UHaul, drove the 45 minutes to his house on the McKenzie river, and got started. Yes, it took us over an hour just to start moving. Start to finish it took us about 7 hours of work. He ended up paying us some fair amount.
     But there was a moment inbetween the starting and the realizing we were going to get paid where I turned to John and said "You know John, I hate helping people move. It's probably the chore in life I enjoy the least. I would rather go to the dentist. But I just realized that by helping this stranger move, who I don't know and won't get any reward for, I am doing quite possibly the most selfless act I could do. This is quite literally when I am most like Jesus."
     Which I promptly followed with "Isn't that pathetic?"

     Ha! I was in the process of performing an act that gave me no tangible reward, no emotional reward, and really no feeling of satisfaction, despite the fact that I did not enjoy the act itself at all. At that moment, I had proven that uppity jerk Jackwa wrong. I tell you this long, boring story to give you hope.
     Then I got paid. And bought a pizza. And realized that I had proven that uppity jerk wrong, and realizing that made me happy. Now, when I go to help someone move, I enjoy it a bit more because I can think about what a great person I am.
     For example, yesterday I helped a friend move from his apartment to his new house. He and his wife had just recieved their keys to their first home and I was happy to help (even volunteered!). Cody and his brother are strong dudes who run their own little moving company, so it went by lightning quick. There's nothing quite as emasculating as seeing two guys move a big couch around a few corners and doorways, and - while holding the couch - ask me to grab the cushions. (I did, however, move his 5, 10 and 15 pound weights all by myself. In three trips.) I enjoyed the move, because the whole time I could take satisfaction in doing something selfless. I was selfishly seeking selflessness, which really undermines the whole premise that I can help people move in a purely selfless way. Ugh, that bastard Jackwa has beaten me.
     (Also, sometimes helping people move can be fun, if they have to move embarrassing stuff. Cody had two hula hoops. Hula hoops!! He can claim they are his wife's but I don't believe him - his hips are too well defined. We also threw his kitchen table off the balcony. And he had like seven toaster-ovens that he moved as well. He did decide to give his brother his old Space Jam poster, however. All but one of the above things are true.)

Is it embarrassing that Bugs Bunny is listed before Michael Jordan?  Maybe. Is it embarrassing that my wife was like "you should put a picture of Space Jam on the blog" as she read and then said "one with Shaquille O'Neal on it." ?? Yes. That is embarrassing.

     I wonder: if I hadn't been aware of this truly-selfish-acts-are-impossible conundrum, if I ever performed one (shy of dying), would it count? The only thing that ruins my helping-people-move theory is knowing that it makes a good argument against that conundrum. I don't know. You don't care. Let's call it quits.

     But first: admit it. Based on the title, you thought this post was going to be about a Christian Dance Party I was throwing (which I have done), or maybe a dance-rehab-class, or a Maroon 5 Moves Like Jagger remix or something, didn't you. Sucker. 

Aliens

     "What is one thing that would really force you to question your beliefs"


     A friend asked me this question a few months ago, with regards to Christianity. At some level it is a question that, based on how I answer, allows the one who posed the question to evaluate how I pursue my belief. If I say "nothing could make me question my beliefs" than I must not really analyze or challenge anything that comes from a religious standpoint. On the other hand, if the thing that makes me really question Christianity is very plausible, or in fact has happened in the past, then I look like an idiot. (This question wasn't posed in a threatening or challenging way of any sort, for the record, but was genuinely curious). I think it's a great question that everyone should ask themselves and of others.

     So, having just discussed how I try to approach my faith in a logical fashion, let's begin with these beliefs that I accept as true:

1) God created the universe and everything in it.
2) God created humans on earth
3) Jesus (God as a human) died and rose from the dead to save humans from their sins.

     "What is one thing that would really force you to question your beliefs"


     Lucky for me, I had thought this through before. Kind from a backwards approach, where I realized that if x were to happen, I'd really question my faith in Christ.

The potentially biggest obstacle
 between me and my faith

     The one thing that would most cause me to question my faith is discovering intelligent life on another planet. Really, it's more than "intelligent life" but life with a soul. (No, I don't have any method of proving if aliens would or would not have a soul, but meet me halfway). Why? There's a few reasons.

     1) I've talked about how the universe we live in is a whole bunch of systems that God started and let run a long time ago. I'm of the opinion that the universe exists solely for us to run around in. That means that all of the other planets and solar systems and galaxies and everything else out there is pretty much a byproduct of creation (which could have been done via big bang for all I know or care).
     Life, in my opinion, is still a tiny miracle every time it happens. Every new creature and new bit of life is God shooting a little lightning bolt to earth and yelling "Go!" He puts life on Earth. If life and humanity was the sole purpose of creation, I don't see why God would put life on other planets as well. There's no need for him to put it on Mars or anyplace we haven't yet found.
     If there was unintelligent life on another planet, I would still really examine what I believe and why. If we found that trees are growing somewhere out there, I wouldn't be terribly concerned, but my theory about life being "God lightning bolts" would break down. If there were animals crawling around, I would be much more skeptic, but I still don't think it would be shattering. (I would essentially be forced to change my opinion that life is a tiny miracle happening by the grace of God every day. Instead I would view it as yet another "system" that God put in place and is running along just fine.) If, however there were some sort of "people" "walking around," I would have one main question:

     2) Do they have some form of Judaism/Christianity? I feel like their humanity would have the same types of issues as ours did: at some point falling from the grace of God, or not falling and still being in a garden of eden like state. If either of those two scenarios are not present at some level, then pretty much everything I've believed I am going to re-examine very closely.

     I don't expect you to really care or agree with any of this. But when I've had this conversation with other people they've been genuinely interested, and I find that writing it out makes me think through it better. So I figured there's a chance that you might care or have similar/differing thoughts. Please feel free to leave them as a comment below (or email me, grant dot gilchrist at gmail). I just felt the desire to express it.

     For what it's worth, my wife was asked the same question and said "the equivalent of the rapture happening in some other religion." Meaning, if the biggest, grandest, most final prophecies of other religions came true, she would probably believe that religion instead. A much smarter, simpler answer, really.

A picture of the baby, because I know that's why half of you are here anyways.

Biblical Logic and (Not) Proving God Exists

Author's note: holy crap this ended up being long. I was tempted to break it up into two posts, like I usually do when I try to get smart, but decided not to. I will put some pictures in to make it prettier. Also, you are now able to leave comments below if you so choose. Thanks for reading.


     I hold an opinion that a lot of people don't agree with. I think the Bible is a very logical piece of work, and that my Christian faith is a logical exercise as well. People take issue with this notion because they believe the Bible is contradictory, or don't see how a position of faith and belief can be defended or pursued in a logical fashion. But, if I accept the following things to be true:
     a) Jesus was who He said He was (God in human form)
     b) Jesus was raised from death after being crucified
then pretty much everything else falls into place. I am not a philosopher, and never took any sort of a "logic" class at any point in my education. But I majored in mathematics, which means that I essentially majored in logic, so here are some thoughts.

     I think a lot of people hear the word "logic" and think "scientific." These are two very different things, that I am going to attempt to define without looking up actual definitions. "Science" is a method of testing something that we think is or is not accurate. Isolate a variable, test the variable, interpret the results. This scientific method is applied to all kinds of areas of life and nature. So, based on my limited understanding, something being "scientific" doesn't necessarily mean it's based in physics or chemistry, it just means it was tested using some form of that method. I think most people know this, but the term "scientific" tends to get thrown around a lot these days and is losing its true meaning.
     "Logic," on the other hand, is applying a previously agreed upon or accepted system of rules to any desired presupposition. ("Presupposition" basically means "let's pretend this is true and see what follows." It's the starting point.) A presupposition doesn't have to be true, or even reasonable, for logic to be applied to it.

This picture is not just filler.

     (For what it's worth, Mr. CS Lewis himself first exposed me to this idea. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe the professor explains to Peter the following: It's not illogical for a fantastic wonderland to exist in the wardrobe if Lucy says one does, because Lucy isn't prone to lying or confusing fantasy with reality. Instead of starting with the presupposition "fantasy lands don't exist," he starts with "Lucy doesn't lie," and goes from there. It might not be probable, or even believable that Narnia exists, but that doesn't make it illogical.)
     If I start with the above presuppositions (that Jesus was who He said He was (God in human form) and that Jesus was raised from death after being crucified), most of the rest of the Bible makes sense. To me, it's very logical, and I am a pretty decent logician.

     What I don't try and do, ever, is prove that God exists. I can't. I don't think anyone can. Well, obviously no one can or else someone would have done so and this wouldn't be an issue. The fact that I can't prove His existence doesn't bother me, because I find His existence to be logically consistent with what I know and understand about the world, my life, and other presuppositions I have chosen to accept.
     A lot of people take issue with the fact that God's existence can't be proven. They point to "science." (Remember that science really means "a system for testing variables," but I am going to its more common definition which is "stuff we know.") "Science" has done a lot for humanity. Pretty much everything I interact with on a daily basis that is man-made has its root in science at some level. Science put a man on the moon, science puts probes on the ocean floor, and science gives us medicine and healthcare. Since science has done so much for us, a lot of people (understandably) put more stock in it than they do in the notion of a God or one of His potentially holy books. So, it's fairly logical to assume that if science, which has done all of these fantastic things in a fairly short period of time, can't prove God's existence, He probably doesn't exist. Couple that with all of the disease, disaster and death in the world, and people don't want a part of Him.

On a fairly unrelated note: who would make
their children watch this? I am terrified already!

     I differ in my presuppositions. If someone states "science can't prove God exists, so I doubt He exists" they are at some level assuming science has been trying to prove He exists. I don't think that's the case. (From what I understand, early scientists believed He existed and either used that knowledge to assume there was order in the universe, or try to prove His existence through order in the universe. Some of this was misguided: People believed that the Earth was the center of the universe because that's where God put it. So when that was proven wrong, it was interpreted as an assault on God's existence or creation, but in hindsight that's really not the case.)
     All that to say: just because we can't prove God exists doesn't make me question His existence any more than anything else might make me question His existence. (In fact, often in mathematics proofs aren't accomplished by proving something MUST be true, but by proving that it can't NOT be true. I can't prove God exists, but I can easily accept that He can't NOT exist). For me, it's a logical pursuit. I am just starting at a point that atheists don't tend to start at. I readily accept that if Jesus wasn't who he said he was, and if he didn't resurrect himself from death, then my Christian faith is pretty damn empty.

     Another presupposition of mine (I use that word to sound smart), and this one is going to be tough for me to articulate: I've stated before

            "Science is man attempting to figure out how God does what He does." -Grant Gilchrist 

which is really a pretty brilliant quote that should go on my tombstone if I ever die. Well, if I am assuming God exists, can I test the existence of the Thing that created my ability to test? Or, can I test the existence of the Thing that created the other things I test? I honestly don't know. It seems like I should be able to, but it seems pretty impossible at the same time. Can science test the existence of God? I don't think anyone is trying, and maybe they should?
     Jesus famously quoted Deuteronomy when he said "Do not put the Lord your God to the test," but I've always interpreted that to mean "don't push Him." Like when a bratty kid challenges his and mom is trying to convince the kid not to get a spanking. Don't test her, she will spank you. I don't think that's the same kind of "test" as trying to see if God exists.
     Testing God's existence happened throughout the Old Testament. People walked in ovens, seas were parted, armies went blind, etc. But the most "scientific" of all the tests, at least that I know of, came from Gideon. He basically said "God if you want me to do something, I want my jacket, which I will leave out overnight, to get wet but the ground around it to stay dry." Then that happened. Then he said "God, just to make sure, tonight I don't want my jacket to get wet and I want the ground around it wet." And it happened. He essentially isolated a variable (the jacket) and ran a couple tests on it. (He even used the word "test" in my translation).

     So, why isn't anyone testing to see if there is a God?
     Here's the obvious, main problem: Testing God (or any human) isn't a hard science. To test the existence of God, you'd have to play by that existing God's rules. We play by God's rules when we test matter and chemicals, because we are working within his system of nature. But testing God relies on an understanding of His system of Himself (if that makes any sense at all). He's a being, so He probably won't respond the same way to every test. It would take a supreme understanding of how He works and why He acts in the ways that He does. And this knowledge could really only be gained by a) assuming he exists, and b) assuming one of those holy books floating around there is actually Holy. You'd essentially have to be a believer.
     One might argue that point. That believing something, as opposed to accepting results of experiments, taints the scientific process. Ultimately, this is no different from any other aspect of the scientific method. Take Euclidean geometry, in my opinion the most basic and accessible forms of all the sciences. Euclidean geometry has a thousand proofs and theorems and laws that everyone accepts and trusts. But Euclidean geometry is based on 5 key axioms. An axiom is basically something everyone agrees is true. Something everyone believes is true. From wikipedia, the 5 Euclidean axioms (with my additions in bold):

1. "To draw a straight line from any point to any point."    (meaning one line connects two points)
2. "To produce [extend] a finite straight line continuously in a straight line."     (a line segment can be extended into an infinite line)
3. "To describe a circle with any centre and distance [radius]."     (a circle is what a circle is)
4. "That all right angles are equal to one another."     (all right angles are equal to one another)
5. The parallel postulate: "That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles."

     Look at that 5th one. It's not at all obvious. The first four make pretty good sense. The fifth one isn't obvious when you read it, but if you look into it just a bit it also is very sensible. The point being, none of those 5 things can be proved. They have to be accepted. Starting from a point of belief is necessary for any sort of proof or demonstration. This is no different with my faith in God. Well, the difference is that everyone accepts the definition of a circle, not everyone accepts the existence of a God.
     The point I am trying to make is that accepting the existence of a God would not negate any evidence that might suggest the existence of a God, it is in fact how any evidence is ever gathered.

Life at Conception and Initiative 26 - Part I

(A two-parter on when life begins and my views on abortion. Part II is here.)

     I should start by saying that I am pro-life, just so we all know where I am coming from. If anyone says to me that a woman "should have the right to choose" what happens to her body, my response tends to be "I completely agree, and she had the choice to not have sex." I don't even think that's as strong an argument as "well what if that fetus is a girl, why doesn't she get to choose?" I think sex is the root of the argument, when people make it about "life."
     "Life." That's what's up for debate. When does a human life really begin? When does a person become a person? I am out of my league in this conversation. I have half-formed opinions from half-understood facts and statistics that may or may not be accurate. This is me thinking out loud, because I tend to understand things better when I think them out loud in my head (it makes sense). Being misinformed and out of my league has never stopped me before, after all.

      I'm going to start with the most logical approach I can. Let's say life doesn't start at conception, as this law is trying to say it does. The logical question that follows is then, when does it begin? I've heard people say that it begins when the embryos "start to look like a person." This is incredibly dangerous, because not only is it stupid (it really is), it's subjective. But more importantly, if that was the definition of human life, "looking like a person," the true outcome of that line of thinking is that we would have levels of humanity. The deformed would be less human than the non deformed. Those in their prime of life would be more human than infants or the incredibly old. A man who gets in a car wreck and loses his legs is suddenly less human than he was yesterday. This is obviously a notion that few would accept (and we tend to not thing too highly of those that would accept it). But why do we reject it?
     Why are opposed to the idea of levels of humanity? There must be something that unites all of humanity beyond how we look.

When did Wyatt start thinking? I'm pretty sure it was long
before this picture was taken.

     Maybe a person becomes a person when he or she can think. When there are synapses firing in the brain. I don't know when that happens in a human embryo (and am not going to bother to look it up), but I know at some point it goes from not-happening to happening, right? Is it at that moment little Wyatt became a human? Well, what separates human thinking from animal thinking? It can't be problem solving or language, as lots of mammals can do that, just not as well as us. Is it the ability to think abstractly? I don't know if animals can do that (and I don't know if anyone knows). But, suppose there was a human with a defect and he couldn't think in the abstract. Would he no longer be human? I don't think anyone would say that. When a person lies in a vegetable-like state, are they no longer human? I don't know. Some might say he's not. I don't think those people have the plug pulled because they are no longer human, but because their quality and hope of life are so diminished that it's in everyone's best interest. What am I talking about? Point of the paragraph: I don't think that "thinking" is what makes us human. Pretty much all animals have a brain.
     So it's not based on how people look or when they start thinking, in my opinion.
     What's left? A heartbeat? That's actually a pretty good benchmark. Once that heart starts to beat, we have a person. But really, the key isn't the heartbeat. Heartbeats have a special meaning to us because we can feel them and hear them and pretend like that's where emotions come from (despite the fact that we really feel them in our gut, right?). But the heartbeat is just a means to an end: pushing blood around to get stuff to different parts of the body. Picking "heartbeat" as the benchmark is fairly arbitrary. What if someone gets a heart transplant? In those few moments when there's no heart inside him, is he no longer human? Of course not. Or if someone has a machine pumping their blood? Still human. The heart isn't the issue, it's the whole system of bodily functions. Well damn it, those functions are starting as soon as that baby is conceived. They change and morph over the next several months, but they are fundamentally the same, right? (no really, I am asking, I don't know). Those functions are no different than a bear's or a wolf's or a rats. Rats.
     If it's not the brain, the heartbeat, or the physical appearance, what's left? Really, the question becomes "what makes a human a human," or, different from animals. That is a question of soul. Humans have a soul. Define that however you want, I don't actually care for the moment, but let's just agree to call the difference between humans and animals "the soul." (If you think humans are no different from animals, you are deluding yourself.)

     So, pretend we agree that humans are humans because they have a soul. Then, back at our original question, if having a soul makes a person a person, when do they get that soul? Conception makes the most sense. They become a human when that sperm and that egg become best friends and start growing. It just fits. If the soul came any later, you would have to assume that someone or something is giving that person a soul, and that someone or something would really have to be God by some definition, and at that point the morality and ethics of abortion are pretty much lost (if there is a more-powerful, higher being, we shouldn't be undoing its work of creating life). If the soul isn't bestowed at some point, it must happen at conception.

     This is what I do. I grab an argument or statements or assumptions and I take it to its grandest, largest extremes, and I take it to its smallest, most minute extremes. If the arguments hold up in these extremes, they are probably valid, and if the arguments break down, they are probably flawed. I do this with everything, all the time. I can't help it. So, yes, I concede that I am nitpicking notions like "life begins with a heartbeat" and that I am drawing fairly broad, grand conclusions about the existence of a soul or a God. But my logic is pretty sound. I can't prove anything, but doesn't it at least raise enough questions about the alternatives? Don't you have to question the idea that a person becomes a person at any time other that conception?

     Believing that life begins at conception is logically consistent. It is also the simplest, easiest definition. I am not going to try to apply Occam's Razor, because it doesn't really fit here, but the fact that it's the easiest point to start from is a great reason to back it, in my opinion. Get rid of those grey areas if you can.

     Unfortunately, this isn't a very convenient place to start life. It means that some effective, popular forms of contraceptive are actually killing people (because they do their work after conception), and it means that throwing out fertilized eggs when a woman is receiving in vitro fertilization is murder, and it means that early abortions are more horrible than they were before. All three of those results suck, but there you have it. You aren't going to find a very convenient place to say that a human embryo isn't a person, and convenience isn't the goal, anyways.

     If this initiative is passed, a lot of things follow. It is almost surely going to go all the way to the supreme court, which will either undermine or strengthen Roe v. Wade. It will make getting an abortion illegal in Mississippi, and it will make the process of in vitro fertilization much more complicated and less likely to be successful. It will make post-conception forms of contraception illegal. This initiative is a very big deal.

Part II is here

Life at Conception and Initiave 26 -- Part 2

A two-parter on when life begins and my views on abortion.

     I just spent 1300 words explaining why I think life begins at conception. Know what? I don't think that really matters. I don't think that's the real issue here, or the real issue with abortion. I think the real issue is that people want to have sex without consequences. People like having their get-out-of-jail free cards and want to defend it and protect it and keep it legal, so they fight over it.
     As I said last time, I am pro-life. I think the labels "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are stupid, because no one is really "anti-life" and no one is "anti-choice," but they are the political terms that have been solidified. I will use pro-abortion and anti-abortion to call it what it is.
     I don't think there are many people that have the active, thoughtful mindset of "I don't care if I get pregnant (or my girlfriend does) because I can just have an abortion." I really don't. I figure at the very least, abortions are expensive and annoying, so people would rather avoid them. But I do think that in the back of peoples' minds, there is this notion that "it's okay if I (or my girlfriend) get pregnant because it doesn't have to change my life." That thought is there for a lot of people, and you will never convince me otherwise. How could it not be? This comforting thought allows men and women to have sex and if a girl gets pregnant, they can continue their lives essentially unaffected. This is good news, because sex is fun. And sex without consequences is more fun. If we can convince ourselves that sex without consequences is possible, sweet! That just means ignoring the fact that sex has an emotional hook to it, that it tends to produce life, and that it often transfers diseases.
     Well, emotions can be managed, diseases can be treated, and life doesn't start right away anyways, so free sex is still fair game.

     The consequences exist. They just do. So, abortion becomes an option to get rid of one of those consequences. People that are opposed to Initiative 26 have a lot of concerns about it and what it leads to - I am just going to focus on abortions for now.
     There is the legitimate concern that criminalizing abortions will lead to more back-alley, coat hanger abortions and overdose abortions. This may happen. It's truly unfortunate. But there are consequences for actions, and getting an abortion is just a consequence for trying to avoid another consequence. It will still drastically reduce the number of abortions that occur.
     A lot of people argue that this won't fix the problem. That there are too many unwanted pregnancies, that these children will grow up in homes that aren't able to provide, or that it will cause further problems on society. This is also probably true. Here's where I propose a radical idea:
     Don't make criminalizing abortion the only step towards stopping abortions and unwanted pregnancies.

     There's not just one solution to the problem!! Why is that so hard for people to see?! Don't just stop abortions. Educate kids better! Inform them of the consequences of sex, the safety and benefits of abstinence, AND how to use condoms! Have parents start preaching values again! Attach a modicum of morality and ethics to sex!
     And if you are a person or group who is anti-abortion in an active, loud sense, then you damn better be pro-adoption. And I don't mean pro-adoption in the theoretical, supportive sense. I mean you better get off your ass and adopt some kids that need a home. If you care so much about those unborn babies, give them a good home to come to.
     There's not one solution to the problems that ail our country. The financial crisis we are in is not due to a lack of oversight by the government. It is not due to rich people not paying enough taxes. It is not due to massive corporations not paying enough taxes, or banks being dumb with their money, or huge debt by the government, or huge debt by the American people, or defaulted housing or a lack of jobs. It is due to ALL of those things. Fix all of those things. Stop blaming each individual thing and fix all of them.
     Abortion is no different. The problem isn't that people want to have free sex. The problem isn't that kids are uneducated, or that there is a lack of morals, or that men aren't taking responsibility for creating life, or that there aren't enough viable candidates for adoption. It's all of those things. We have to fix all of them.
     I truly believe these problems, all of them, start at home. Families are broken down through divorce, values and morals have been lost, money is no longer saved, and everyone wants a nice house, car and TV. This lack of family values trickles into how we buy things, what we watch, and who we vote for, and here we are. Oversimplification? Yes. Accurate? Probably. Do I have any solutions? Men need to nut up and start raising families and everyone should go start buying into some reasonable system of morality and ethics. I can recommend true Christianity if you don't know where to start (meaning, not Christianity preached by someone trying to profit off of you or their fame, for starters). And start saving your money.

     I don't know what I am talking about. I understand that. I turned from a logically thinking person to a crazy man spewing his ideas of how the world should look. But I just might be right. I think I am right. Sex isn't free, abortion is killing a person, life begins at conception, and work hard to raise a good family.

Growing up PK

     Pastor's kids rebel. That's the stereotype. They are subject to so much pressure and scrutiny that they become a rebel without a cause and start dancing all footloose and other things happen. Well, I'm a PK and I didn't rebel. Neither did the PK's around my age at school or at my church. Why is that? I don't really know, but I am going to pretend like I do.
     I think a big part of it is that Eugene, Oregon, is not a "churchy" town. Going to church on Sunday is not the socially correct thing to do, so being a PK doesn't carry as much weight here as it does in a lot of other places. There isn't the pressure of a whole town watching and analyzing your every move, and I think that makes a huge difference. When I went to school, I would guess that most of the people in my class didn't go to church at all, and many more were just holiday church-goers. All of those people, and by extension, all of their families, don't really care about who the pastor's son is.
     Growing up in a non-churchy town has a strange effect as a PK. Whenever someone found out what my dad did, they would change how they acted around me. They'd try to stop cussing, maybe not tell a dirty joke, sometimes even apologize for using the Lord's name in vain. I kind of liked it. I think the idea of religion was really foreign to a lot of my classmates, so they weren't sure how to act around a person like me. This might be the case for all PK's everywhere, and in fact it might be the case for all obviously-Christian people as well, I don't know. But people would definitely change when I was around, and it was a little weird.
     Since the whole town wasn't concerned with their pastor's children's lives, that really just leaves the church. When I was growing up (through college), my dad was a pastor at a really big church, with thousands of people attending on a given weekend. I'd be in sermons, I was leading small groups, I was even asked to represent "the youth of the church" at a special ceremony for the groundbreaking of a new church building. With all of those people and the attention that comes with it, I never felt like I was being terribly scrutinized, and that's a testament to the people in that church. I didn't feel a lot of pressure to act or be a certain way. It's very possible that I didn't feel that pressure because I was already acting in ways that were acceptable, for the most part, but I think it was different than at a lot of other churches.
     My uncle (dad's brother) is also a pastor at a big church, up in Beaverton, Oregon. I remember walking into that church with my cousin Jess on a Christmas Eve service, and feeling everyone looking at me. I just knew it was happening. We as a family would all go sit in the front row of the church and wait for the service to be over so we could get at our presents, but it felt different. It's possible I was aware of the attention because it was new to me (like how my room never smelled to me but always did to the girls that came over -- once, and always asked why it smelled like damp goose and never came back). But I honestly think the attention I received at my uncle's church was fundamentally different from the attention I received at my church.
     But the main place that pressure can come from - the pressure to act or be a certain way - has to be from home. There were a few times when my mom or dad would say something like "what would the church think," or "how would that look to the church," but a few times in 21 years is not that many. I came from a home that allowed me to be who I wanted to be, and that takes away any external pressure that might exist. I think even if I did go to a church, or live in a community, that was very preoccupied with the behavior of its PK's, having parents who didn't care if I was in AWANA or going to youth group every week would have been enough. Again, that might be a chicken-egg sort of conundrum (maybe my parents were laid-back because I was a good kid), but I don't think so.

     There were a couple times in high-school when I was feeling stifled or judged for how I was behaving, or what I was planning on doing. I remember thinking, briefly, that I was tired of having to live up to other people's expectations, or that there was a lot of pressure on me because of who my dad was. I can understand that pressure being overwhelming if it is consistent and strong. But I made a realization at a very young age that has served me well for my life up to this point: no matter how many people are watching me and have expectations for me, it pales compared to the fact that God is watching and has expectations for me. In fact, pleasing Him was more important than pleasing everyone else, which is actually a freeing revelation (as opposed to piling on more pressure, in addition to all the people). It was like the corollary to the cheesy cross-stitch "Me and God is always a majority." Which, in math, is read Me + God > Everyone Else. I understood that if there was any reason to feel pressure from other people, there was much reason to feel "pressure" from God, in a good way.

What if he likes art? What if art is his thing?
We'll have nothing in common.

     I wonder what it'll be like for Wyatt (and his future siblings) to be a pastor's grandkid (PGK). Will he still be treated differently by peers when they find out? Having a dad for a teacher might be similar, if I end up teaching at his school. I guess I'll have to be careful to not put any unnecessary pressure on him to be a model churchgoer, or a fantastic mathematician. Things to think about I suppose.

Prayer Without Ceasing

     I used to talk to God all the time. When I woke up, when I went to bed, and throughout my day I would tell Him what was going on, what I was thinking, and what I was thankful for. This was in middle school and early high school. I didn't know it at the time, but I had a really healthy, ideal prayer life. I think this was due to the fact that, at that time in my life, I had few friends and was a weird mix of shy and socially awkward. When I had no one else to talk to throughout my day, and really a lack of confidence in the idea of finding actual people to talk to, prayer was a natural resort for me.
     I can safely say I started high school with three friends, Mac, Josh and Jered. They were great friends and I had a lot of fun with them, but they also had their own things (swimming and football) and I spent most of my non-school time alone. Then things started to change. My funny, confident side grew tired of being stifled by my shy side. My older sister's friends seemed to enjoy me and like me as a peer instead of as a friend's little sibling. I remember the first time I cracked a joke to the class and everyone laughed and I thought "okay, I can be funny out loud."
     Suddenly I was making friends. I would see people and say hi to them, even talk to them, when walking through the halls. This was new to me. I had to work at it and get better at it. I started running conversations and interactions through my mind, analyzing them.
     I think this was when it changed. I started to think about myself and my strengths/weaknesses instead of talking with God throughout my day. I was growing selfish, honestly. With this selfishness I think the main thing I lost was my communication with God. I noticed the change. One time I walked out of a grocery store and had a thought like "I sure am funny," probably after a particularly sarcastic day of mine, and then almost immediately thought "huh, I haven't really talked to God today. In fact, I haven't talked to Him in a while." I missed the conversation and was aware that I missed it.

     Sometimes I will try to trace a line of thought I've had. It's a fun, challenging exercise. You know when you are thinking about something, say, work, and next thing you know you are thinking about ligers (not to be confused with tigons. How did you get from work to ligers? I try and remember what my connections were. Something like "I need to get to work early tomorrow to finish grading. Should I bike or should I drive? I'll drive. Which route is fastest at 7:00 am? Depends on the lights. I wish the city would release an app telling me the timing of the lights, so I could plan a route just as I start driving. Or better yet, let google maps do that. We could have a whole society of efficient, linked transportation. A bunch of batmobiles. Wow, Batman is so cool. Catwoman's in the next Batman movie. I wonder if she'll have a pet tiger or something. Tigers are also pretty cool. Did I bring my Detroit Tigers hat with me? Ligers are real. They seem like they would be fake but they are totally real." All I can remember is I was thinking about getting to work and now I am thinking about an absurd animal. I trace the conversation as best I can (and usually find all the links, you should try this sometime).
     This happens to me when I am praying all the time. I start praying with the intention of thanking God for lots of things, and all of a sudden I am drawing up The Annexation of Puerto Rico in my mind. These tangents weren't a problem when I was "praying without ceasing" because God was right there with me, agreeing every step of the way. "Yes, Grant my son," He'd say in His deep, all-knowing voice, "Boardwalk and Park Place are overrated when compared to the Greens." Now when I pray, I am starting and ending a conversation, and it seems rude or inadequate to get on so many tangents.

Wyatt often puts his arms up, straight in the air,
while sleeping or while awake. We like to say he
is always ready to worship. He's not doing it here.

     I've realized that I replaced my thinking from the one thing that is truly worthy of my praise to a bunch of things I think are cool (myself, friends and batman). In the process of me doing that, I lost my prayer-without-ceasing mindset, and it won't come back easily. Like trying to improve your posture, or trying to brush your teeth every day, it's a hard habit to get back into once it's gone. I've had days where I've told myself "let's try this again" and usually don't do too well. In fact, I feel like I can't do it anymore, as if it was a gift that I threw away.

     Now it's starting to really bother me. I was with my son Wyatt one morning - and I mean one disgustingly early morning - and prayed for him a little bit. Mid-prayer, I realized I hadn't prayed for him, or at all, in a couple of days. This really disturbed me. If there is anything I should be praying for it's the little ball of helplessness in my life. Why hadn't I prayed for him in a while? I think that the fact that I used to pray effortlessly, I didn't need a routine or system. Now that the effortlessness of it is gone, I need to either get it back or buckle down and commit.

     So, I guess there was something gained and something lost when I started to gain self confidence in high school. I wish I could have the best of both worlds, and if I could do it all over again I probably would, but here I am. I guess I just have another things to work towards.