Scientists have finally discovered another earth. Well, sort of.
Earlier this month NASA’s Kepler space telescope team announced the discovery of “Kepler-22b,” located in what is called a “habitable zone,” meaning an environment that’s not too hot or too cold for the possibility of life. And just last week, the team unveiled two other earth-sized planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, although they are not in the habitable zone.
“This discovery shows that we Homo sapiens are straining our reach into the universe to find planets that remind us of home. We are almost there,” said Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, one of the world’s leaders in the search for planets.
But apparently a lot of space exists between those two words, “almost,” and “there.” Being reminded of home and finding another earth is more than a world or an earth apart. Kepler-22b for instance, is 600 light years away. Traveling by space shuttle, it would take 22 million years to get there. And Kepler 22b’s size, 2.4 times the size of earth, makes it too big for an atmosphere like earth’s, according to planetary scientist Lena Noack.
Yet scientists are invigorated by the possibility of finding another earth: “You can bet that the hunt is on to find…a true earth twin,” avers astronomer David Charbonneau of Harvard University.
Although I’ve never been a science fiction fan, the dreamer in me is fascinated with the concept of another earth and what it would be like.
The 2011 film, Another Earth, explored the idea of another earth as an opportunity for a second chance in life, a place where a parallel you exists with another, possibly better life. The producers used astrophysicist, Dr. Richard Berendzen, (author of Pulp Physics) for the background voice asking the probing questions about a parallel earth and our place in it: “Could we even recognize ourselves, and if we did, would we know ourselves? What would we say to ourselves? What would we learn from ourselves? What would we really like to see if we could stand outside ourselves and look at us?”
The truth is, we don’t have to travel 22 million years in space to find a place where we can ask those or similar questions. Standing on the precipice of a New Year is occasion enough to step outside ourselves and take inventory of who we are, really.
Do we know what to say to ourselves? Do we know the self to whom we speak? Are we strangers to ourselves?
C.G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, wrote about an inner dimension he referred to as the True Self. For Jung, this Self, as author Sue Monk Kidd points out, doesn’t refer to the ego, as in myself, but to the Center of our being, the image of God within us. As we find and cultivate that place we discover our True Self.
It’s the place Jesus of Nazareth described as being, “The Kingdom of God within you” (Luke 17:21), and when we reject it, we also deny our True Self. As Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk of Gethsemani Abby said, “My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love...And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.” For Merton, the secret of our identity, our True Self, is “hidden in the love and mercy of God.”
Sometime between now and the New Year, I think I’ll step outside and peering into the universe, ponder the possibility of another earth, and then, I’ll look within, and even though I’m not there---still without all the answers---I’ll find comfort in the words of the young theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who before being martyred by the Nazis, concluded his poem, “Who Am I?” with the line, “Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!”
Knowing the same One who has me also has the universe and all that’s in it, I’ll then say “Yes,” to my True Self, and taking God’s hand, step boldly into another New Year.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Surviving Christmas in a blended family
Christmas can be tough, especially for blended families. And apparently there are plenty of them. It’s been estimated that more than half of Americans live in some form of a blended family. Stepfamily therapist, Steven Straub, believes that the blended family will become, if it’s not already, the predominate family structure in the United States.
One of the major stressors during the holiday season involves the dynamics involved in blending a family. The holiday season comes packaged with enough tension already, what with gifts to buy, traffic to fight, and programs to attend. When you throw in the jealousies of a step grandmother, or the vengefulness of an ex-spouse, or the hurt feelings of stepchildren, or the insecurity of stepsiblings, (the variables for family strife are virtually endless) a veritable boiling cauldron of emotions threatens to spill over into the dream of the quaint family Christmas, scalding any possibility of what peace and joy might have been.
Eight years ago I experienced my first Christmas with our blended family. With each Christmas our family has drawn closer as together we’ve experienced the challenge of each holiday.
I’ve learned a few lessons that have helped me grow with my blended family during the holiday season.
I ceased chasing that perfect Christmas; it doesn’t exist; there never was one and never will be. God could have made that first Christmas a perfect one, but he didn’t. No room was left in the inn; and the holy family was homeless. Maybe God was trying to tell us something: Life is experienced in the struggle---in brokenness, in hurt, and in pain. Just as he was there in a dirty stable the first Christmas, so God is in the midst of our families’ messiness.
Releasing the pressure of finding the perfect Christmas freed us to try new things. We’ve taken past traditions and incorporated them into our family in ways that created something different. For instance, we open some presents on Christmas Eve (a tradition from my family) and some on Christmas morning (a tradition in Lori’s family), and in so doing started a new tradition.
I’ve also learned that no matter the number of children (we have four) in a blended family, each child is different, and each child is the same. Each has unique characteristics, but they all have the same basic emotional needs: love, acceptance, security, attention. In healthy family relations those needs can be met. Maybe that’s why the biblical character, King David, described God as a “father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,” a God who “places the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:5, 6).
Christmas season bristles with emotions so tense they sometimes seem to ricochet off the walls. I like the words of the Apostle Paul when he admonished his readers to “take care of those who are weak” (I Thessalonians 5:14). Often, during Christmas, those in blended families are experiencing the deep pain of broken relationships or feeling the emptiness of a loved one who is no longer there. Or maybe both.
It’s perhaps the sense of loss---the absence of a parent or child at Christmas, the grief of what once was and never will be again---that is most pronounced in blended families. But, the void felt by changed circumstances cuts across the emotional landscape of all family structures, however “family” may be defined.
My mother and father are encountering the emotions experienced with their first Christmas in a retirement facility. “I miss the smells of cooking in my own kitchen, decorating my house, and inviting friends over,” Mom confided to me the other day. And then with added insight, “One thing about it, life is about change, no matter your age or where you are.”
Or the type of family you’re in.
It’s true; it’s inevitable: Change is the permanent constant. Successfully blending a family is only saying, “Yes,” to the possibilities for new life, knowing that whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter--life is found in the One who never changes, the One who calls us forward, the One who knows blending our life with those we love is what life is all about.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
One of the major stressors during the holiday season involves the dynamics involved in blending a family. The holiday season comes packaged with enough tension already, what with gifts to buy, traffic to fight, and programs to attend. When you throw in the jealousies of a step grandmother, or the vengefulness of an ex-spouse, or the hurt feelings of stepchildren, or the insecurity of stepsiblings, (the variables for family strife are virtually endless) a veritable boiling cauldron of emotions threatens to spill over into the dream of the quaint family Christmas, scalding any possibility of what peace and joy might have been.
Eight years ago I experienced my first Christmas with our blended family. With each Christmas our family has drawn closer as together we’ve experienced the challenge of each holiday.
I’ve learned a few lessons that have helped me grow with my blended family during the holiday season.
I ceased chasing that perfect Christmas; it doesn’t exist; there never was one and never will be. God could have made that first Christmas a perfect one, but he didn’t. No room was left in the inn; and the holy family was homeless. Maybe God was trying to tell us something: Life is experienced in the struggle---in brokenness, in hurt, and in pain. Just as he was there in a dirty stable the first Christmas, so God is in the midst of our families’ messiness.
Releasing the pressure of finding the perfect Christmas freed us to try new things. We’ve taken past traditions and incorporated them into our family in ways that created something different. For instance, we open some presents on Christmas Eve (a tradition from my family) and some on Christmas morning (a tradition in Lori’s family), and in so doing started a new tradition.
I’ve also learned that no matter the number of children (we have four) in a blended family, each child is different, and each child is the same. Each has unique characteristics, but they all have the same basic emotional needs: love, acceptance, security, attention. In healthy family relations those needs can be met. Maybe that’s why the biblical character, King David, described God as a “father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,” a God who “places the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:5, 6).
Christmas season bristles with emotions so tense they sometimes seem to ricochet off the walls. I like the words of the Apostle Paul when he admonished his readers to “take care of those who are weak” (I Thessalonians 5:14). Often, during Christmas, those in blended families are experiencing the deep pain of broken relationships or feeling the emptiness of a loved one who is no longer there. Or maybe both.
It’s perhaps the sense of loss---the absence of a parent or child at Christmas, the grief of what once was and never will be again---that is most pronounced in blended families. But, the void felt by changed circumstances cuts across the emotional landscape of all family structures, however “family” may be defined.
My mother and father are encountering the emotions experienced with their first Christmas in a retirement facility. “I miss the smells of cooking in my own kitchen, decorating my house, and inviting friends over,” Mom confided to me the other day. And then with added insight, “One thing about it, life is about change, no matter your age or where you are.”
Or the type of family you’re in.
It’s true; it’s inevitable: Change is the permanent constant. Successfully blending a family is only saying, “Yes,” to the possibilities for new life, knowing that whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter--life is found in the One who never changes, the One who calls us forward, the One who knows blending our life with those we love is what life is all about.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Friday, December 16, 2011
All I want for Christmas is my nip and tuck
Back in 1944, while teaching music in public school, Donald Gardner asked his second grade class what they wanted for Christmas. Noticing how almost all his students answered him with a lisp because they had at least one front tooth missing, Gardner sat down and wrote the song, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”
Unfortunately, at least for many youth, it takes much more than two new front teeth to fit into the norm physically; it takes a nip here and a tuck there.
Many, if not most, adults get cosmetic surgery because they don’t want to look their age; they don’t want to look like the rest. They want to be noticed in the crowd.
What’s interesting is that the increase in teenagers getting cosmetic surgery (cosmetic surgical procedures on youths 18 and younger more than tripled from 1997- 2007, with the controversial procedures, breast augmentation and liposuction, increasing six fold) appears to be for the opposite reason adults choose plastic surgery. In a report by Camille Sweeney in the New York Times, Dr. Frederick Lukash, a cosmetic surgeon in New York City who specializes in treating adults, said, “Unlike adults who may elect cosmetic surgery for the ‘wow’ factor to stand out in a crowd, to be rejuvenated and get noticed, kids have different mantra. They do it to fit in.”
Undergoing surgery to fit in is not without risks, risks most teenagers don’t think through.”Teenagers are often oblivious to the well-documented long-term health consequences of smoking, tanning, and other risky behaviors, and are likely to pay less attention to the risks of cosmetic surgery, making informed consent difficult,” warns psychologist and women’s health expert, Dr. Diana Zuckeman.
That’s not to say all corrective surgery is wrong. On the contrary, some cosmetic procedures have worked wonders for a child’s self esteem. Michael Laudiso, now an adult, reported to Camille Sweeney that having his large ears pinned when he was ten was a life saver: “That surgery made me free.”
Neither is there anything awry or unusual with trying to improve how we look or taking measures to look younger. Jane Fonda decided to go under the knife when she walked by a mirror, caught a glimpse of herself and wondered who that face belonged to. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s me,’” Fonda told TODAY’s Matt Lauer earlier this month. “I just decided I wanted to buy myself some time and look more like how I feel.” said Fonda. She had work on her chin, neck and under the eyes.
But, the real danger lies when we adults create a cultural environment where a young person thinks every tiny detail has to be picture perfect, and where we ourselves think it’s necessary to undergo countless procedures to keep getting that “wow” effect.
We forget the inner beauty that lies much deeper than our aging skin, a beauty that can grow even more attractive with age, a beauty that can’t be touched by a scalpel.
Apparently, Lauren Scruggs’ beauty is more than skin deep. She’s the 23 year-old model who walked into the propeller of a an airplane, fracturing her skull, severing her left hand, breaking her collar bone, injuring her brain, and causing extensive damage to her left eye. Her first spoken words after regaining consciousness were, “I love you.” And, when Lauren used a mirror to see her face for the first time after the accident, her response was, “That’s not that bad.”
I thought of her words as I was getting my haircut the other day. Glancing in the mirror at myself, I noticed a new wrinkle here and some sagging skin there. “Who is that guy who seems to be getting older quicker than I thought he would,” I thought. Then, with a hidden smile, I repeated Lauren’s words to myself, “That’s not that bad.”
And thanking the Lord for the gift of life itself, I said it again, “No, not that bad at all.”
Email David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com. or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Unfortunately, at least for many youth, it takes much more than two new front teeth to fit into the norm physically; it takes a nip here and a tuck there.
Many, if not most, adults get cosmetic surgery because they don’t want to look their age; they don’t want to look like the rest. They want to be noticed in the crowd.
What’s interesting is that the increase in teenagers getting cosmetic surgery (cosmetic surgical procedures on youths 18 and younger more than tripled from 1997- 2007, with the controversial procedures, breast augmentation and liposuction, increasing six fold) appears to be for the opposite reason adults choose plastic surgery. In a report by Camille Sweeney in the New York Times, Dr. Frederick Lukash, a cosmetic surgeon in New York City who specializes in treating adults, said, “Unlike adults who may elect cosmetic surgery for the ‘wow’ factor to stand out in a crowd, to be rejuvenated and get noticed, kids have different mantra. They do it to fit in.”
Undergoing surgery to fit in is not without risks, risks most teenagers don’t think through.”Teenagers are often oblivious to the well-documented long-term health consequences of smoking, tanning, and other risky behaviors, and are likely to pay less attention to the risks of cosmetic surgery, making informed consent difficult,” warns psychologist and women’s health expert, Dr. Diana Zuckeman.
That’s not to say all corrective surgery is wrong. On the contrary, some cosmetic procedures have worked wonders for a child’s self esteem. Michael Laudiso, now an adult, reported to Camille Sweeney that having his large ears pinned when he was ten was a life saver: “That surgery made me free.”
Neither is there anything awry or unusual with trying to improve how we look or taking measures to look younger. Jane Fonda decided to go under the knife when she walked by a mirror, caught a glimpse of herself and wondered who that face belonged to. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s me,’” Fonda told TODAY’s Matt Lauer earlier this month. “I just decided I wanted to buy myself some time and look more like how I feel.” said Fonda. She had work on her chin, neck and under the eyes.
But, the real danger lies when we adults create a cultural environment where a young person thinks every tiny detail has to be picture perfect, and where we ourselves think it’s necessary to undergo countless procedures to keep getting that “wow” effect.
We forget the inner beauty that lies much deeper than our aging skin, a beauty that can grow even more attractive with age, a beauty that can’t be touched by a scalpel.
Apparently, Lauren Scruggs’ beauty is more than skin deep. She’s the 23 year-old model who walked into the propeller of a an airplane, fracturing her skull, severing her left hand, breaking her collar bone, injuring her brain, and causing extensive damage to her left eye. Her first spoken words after regaining consciousness were, “I love you.” And, when Lauren used a mirror to see her face for the first time after the accident, her response was, “That’s not that bad.”
I thought of her words as I was getting my haircut the other day. Glancing in the mirror at myself, I noticed a new wrinkle here and some sagging skin there. “Who is that guy who seems to be getting older quicker than I thought he would,” I thought. Then, with a hidden smile, I repeated Lauren’s words to myself, “That’s not that bad.”
And thanking the Lord for the gift of life itself, I said it again, “No, not that bad at all.”
Email David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com. or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Finding Common Ground at the Manger this Christmas
“What part of Christmas do you find most stressful?” I asked my secretary the other day.
“The shopping,” she said, without hesitating.
“The shopping,” those two words just about cover it all.
The traffic---trying to find a parking place, struggling to drive from one store to the next--- and the crowds, rushing to get in line, scurrying by other shoppers in the mall---all come with the shopping. It’s an all inclusive non-bargain.
And, unless you have the patience of Job or the placidity of the Dali Lama, you’re most likely to bring your little gift bags of shopping stress and strain to your home, or work, or even---dare I say it?---your house of worship.
December---the month when Christians are supposed to be focusing on the birth of the Christ child---is not immune from the same conflict and discord that characterize the world the other eleven months of the year. December just seems to get hit hardest that way.
The angel’s words to the shepherds, announcing the birth of Jesus, seem to mock our frequently misplaced priorities: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” Luke 2:14).
“Yeah, right!” our cynical side snickers.
But wait! There’s still the possibility of a peaceful Christmas. We don’t have to stumble through this season, arriving on the 25th, battered, bruised, frustrated and drained. We are, after all, in charge of our choices and ultimately, our feelings.
Just as a swimmer in turbulent waters finds calmness beneath the surface, we too can find peace if we will only take a deep breath and dive deep, descending to the epicenter of Christmas, the ground zero of the whole tradition, the place where it all began: the night a baby was born in a manger.
For those who choose to celebrate a Christmas with Christ in it, this is where it begins and ends, if they are to find a peace that produces unity not division, hope not despair, light and not darkness.
That peace brings a sense of well-being and purpose not only to families upended by the world’s agenda, but also to houses of worship as well, and it has the potential to galvanize a united front of Christians standing in unity at the common ground found in the manger.
In this world where political agreements are stymied by entrenchment, where once married couples fight custody battles, where the have nots camp in protest of the haves, people yearn for solutions. Christmas can be a most opportune time for the Christian community to demonstrate a unity based on the peace found in the One they claim to follow.
Father Jonathan Morris, speaking recently on the talk show hosted by former evangelist, Reverend James Robison, urged Protestants and Catholics to find common ground. Father Morris, a frequent contributor and analyst for the Fox News Channel, and who currently serves as one of the vicars at the Basilica at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City, issued an impassioned plea for Christians to work together. Speaking to Robison, Fr. Morris said, “Not that you believe every single theological thing that I believe…but we have so much in common, we have one person in common, that is Jesus Christ…(so) we have to work together, we have to have courage to walk together no matter what anyone says.”
Maybe a start in that direction could be made if Protestants stepped inside a Catholic Church and Catholics stood in a Protestant church and sensing the traditions of the place, found a manger scene or at least a picture or image of the Christ child.
Having done that, maybe believers could try gazing at the scene and perhaps even imagine the smell of the dirt the in that cattle stall where Jesus was born. It’s the dirt from which we all came; it’s the dust to which we all return.
But in the manger we find something beyond ourselves, something that unites us as we encounter Jesus; we discover in him the common ground that brings peace on earth and good will towards all people.
It’s in that common ground that we might just find Christmas, after all.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He is also an adjunct teacher at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Email David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
“The shopping,” she said, without hesitating.
“The shopping,” those two words just about cover it all.
The traffic---trying to find a parking place, struggling to drive from one store to the next--- and the crowds, rushing to get in line, scurrying by other shoppers in the mall---all come with the shopping. It’s an all inclusive non-bargain.
And, unless you have the patience of Job or the placidity of the Dali Lama, you’re most likely to bring your little gift bags of shopping stress and strain to your home, or work, or even---dare I say it?---your house of worship.
December---the month when Christians are supposed to be focusing on the birth of the Christ child---is not immune from the same conflict and discord that characterize the world the other eleven months of the year. December just seems to get hit hardest that way.
The angel’s words to the shepherds, announcing the birth of Jesus, seem to mock our frequently misplaced priorities: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” Luke 2:14).
“Yeah, right!” our cynical side snickers.
But wait! There’s still the possibility of a peaceful Christmas. We don’t have to stumble through this season, arriving on the 25th, battered, bruised, frustrated and drained. We are, after all, in charge of our choices and ultimately, our feelings.
Just as a swimmer in turbulent waters finds calmness beneath the surface, we too can find peace if we will only take a deep breath and dive deep, descending to the epicenter of Christmas, the ground zero of the whole tradition, the place where it all began: the night a baby was born in a manger.
For those who choose to celebrate a Christmas with Christ in it, this is where it begins and ends, if they are to find a peace that produces unity not division, hope not despair, light and not darkness.
That peace brings a sense of well-being and purpose not only to families upended by the world’s agenda, but also to houses of worship as well, and it has the potential to galvanize a united front of Christians standing in unity at the common ground found in the manger.
In this world where political agreements are stymied by entrenchment, where once married couples fight custody battles, where the have nots camp in protest of the haves, people yearn for solutions. Christmas can be a most opportune time for the Christian community to demonstrate a unity based on the peace found in the One they claim to follow.
Father Jonathan Morris, speaking recently on the talk show hosted by former evangelist, Reverend James Robison, urged Protestants and Catholics to find common ground. Father Morris, a frequent contributor and analyst for the Fox News Channel, and who currently serves as one of the vicars at the Basilica at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City, issued an impassioned plea for Christians to work together. Speaking to Robison, Fr. Morris said, “Not that you believe every single theological thing that I believe…but we have so much in common, we have one person in common, that is Jesus Christ…(so) we have to work together, we have to have courage to walk together no matter what anyone says.”
Maybe a start in that direction could be made if Protestants stepped inside a Catholic Church and Catholics stood in a Protestant church and sensing the traditions of the place, found a manger scene or at least a picture or image of the Christ child.
Having done that, maybe believers could try gazing at the scene and perhaps even imagine the smell of the dirt the in that cattle stall where Jesus was born. It’s the dirt from which we all came; it’s the dust to which we all return.
But in the manger we find something beyond ourselves, something that unites us as we encounter Jesus; we discover in him the common ground that brings peace on earth and good will towards all people.
It’s in that common ground that we might just find Christmas, after all.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He is also an adjunct teacher at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Email David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Autumn Garden: Christmas Light
“You’d better get what’s left of your garden in; we’re going to have a hard freeze tonight,” Glen, my gardening mentor, warned me several weeks ago. And so I carried in the tomato vines, picked the peppers, and salvaged what okra was left. In the garage, they are now ripening so fast that some are beginning to rot before we can get them eaten. My wife tolerates my boastful proclamation: “It’s November, and we still enjoy the garden,” as if this justifies the time devoted to working the ground this past summer.
Having saved what was left to be saved, I tramped through my garden late this evening. Only vestiges of life remain of what once was: Now, the garden lies fallow as winter approaches; now, it is stripped of life; now it fades into a deep sleep.
The outlines of the garden beds themselves preserve the memory of the high summer’s sun that produced an abundance of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, okra, potatoes, and corn; and over there, on that side of the garden, I crawled from row to row, weeding, harvesting, sometimes lost in wonder and awe in that maze of produce.
And now as I slowly pace each erased row, I commit the remnants to their winter’s grave: The plant labels---“Cayenne pepper,” “Bell Pepper,” “Okra,” “Better Boy Tomato,” “Celebrity Tomato,”--stand like miniature tombstones marking the places where the vegetables once grew. I accidentally step on a tomato or pepper resting on the ground, exposed, unburied, ghostly white--- their corpse-like remains reminding me of life’s inevitable cycle. And I feel somehow I’ve intruded on their hallowed ground.
And the dead vines look like slender fingers reaching up from the underworld, desperately trying to grasp one last ray of life before they are mulched into the humus from which they emerged.
Yet, something magical is happening beneath the earth’s surface as nutrients, helped along by earthworms, are preparing the soil for next year’s crop of plants.
Christians have for centuries observed this interim time of the yearly solstice as an opportunity to anticipate the not yet---the birth of Jesus the Christ---even as they grieve the present: the dominance of darkness that still mars the world. The season is called Advent--- the preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth, bringing with it new life in the deadness of winter.
For hundreds of years, God’s garden---his people---thrived only to die again: “You brought us from Egypt as we were a tender vine;…You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land…But now…The boar from the forest devours us, and the wild animals feed on us…Turn us again to yourself, O Lord God Almighty” (Psalm 80:8, 9, 12, 19). For centuries the Hebrew people looked to a time when they would once again be “a well-watered garden” (Isaiah 58:11). And then, quite sudden-like, but by no surprise to the Eternal Eye, in the “fullness of time, God sent forth his son” (Galatians 4:4-5), a light shining “in the darkness” (John 1:5), and for those who believe the Christ-story, a new light and life in the midst of the darkness and the deadness.
Beneath the surface, the mulch had been prepared for the birth of something new and vibrant.
I know, it’s only a vegetable garden, after all, and maybe it’s not necessary to bring God into it. But as the sun sets so gently on the horizon, I stand in the middle of my garden and remember a greater light that shines the way to more wonderful things: a life grounded in the hope of a brighter tomorrow---a day filled with the abundance of all that is new, and good, and everlasting.
All because a child was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
Imagine that: All this, in a simple garden-variety birth…
…of the miraculous kind.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Having saved what was left to be saved, I tramped through my garden late this evening. Only vestiges of life remain of what once was: Now, the garden lies fallow as winter approaches; now, it is stripped of life; now it fades into a deep sleep.
The outlines of the garden beds themselves preserve the memory of the high summer’s sun that produced an abundance of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, okra, potatoes, and corn; and over there, on that side of the garden, I crawled from row to row, weeding, harvesting, sometimes lost in wonder and awe in that maze of produce.
And now as I slowly pace each erased row, I commit the remnants to their winter’s grave: The plant labels---“Cayenne pepper,” “Bell Pepper,” “Okra,” “Better Boy Tomato,” “Celebrity Tomato,”--stand like miniature tombstones marking the places where the vegetables once grew. I accidentally step on a tomato or pepper resting on the ground, exposed, unburied, ghostly white--- their corpse-like remains reminding me of life’s inevitable cycle. And I feel somehow I’ve intruded on their hallowed ground.
And the dead vines look like slender fingers reaching up from the underworld, desperately trying to grasp one last ray of life before they are mulched into the humus from which they emerged.
Yet, something magical is happening beneath the earth’s surface as nutrients, helped along by earthworms, are preparing the soil for next year’s crop of plants.
Christians have for centuries observed this interim time of the yearly solstice as an opportunity to anticipate the not yet---the birth of Jesus the Christ---even as they grieve the present: the dominance of darkness that still mars the world. The season is called Advent--- the preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth, bringing with it new life in the deadness of winter.
For hundreds of years, God’s garden---his people---thrived only to die again: “You brought us from Egypt as we were a tender vine;…You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land…But now…The boar from the forest devours us, and the wild animals feed on us…Turn us again to yourself, O Lord God Almighty” (Psalm 80:8, 9, 12, 19). For centuries the Hebrew people looked to a time when they would once again be “a well-watered garden” (Isaiah 58:11). And then, quite sudden-like, but by no surprise to the Eternal Eye, in the “fullness of time, God sent forth his son” (Galatians 4:4-5), a light shining “in the darkness” (John 1:5), and for those who believe the Christ-story, a new light and life in the midst of the darkness and the deadness.
Beneath the surface, the mulch had been prepared for the birth of something new and vibrant.
I know, it’s only a vegetable garden, after all, and maybe it’s not necessary to bring God into it. But as the sun sets so gently on the horizon, I stand in the middle of my garden and remember a greater light that shines the way to more wonderful things: a life grounded in the hope of a brighter tomorrow---a day filled with the abundance of all that is new, and good, and everlasting.
All because a child was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
Imagine that: All this, in a simple garden-variety birth…
…of the miraculous kind.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Autumn Garden: Christmas Light
“You’d better get what’s left of your garden in; we’re going to have a hard freeze tonight,” Glen, my gardening mentor, warned me several weeks ago. And so I carried in the tomato vines, picked the peppers, and salvaged what okra was left. In the garage, they are now ripening so fast that some are beginning to rot before we can get them eaten. My wife tolerates my boastful proclamation: “It’s November, and we still enjoy the garden,” as if this justifies the time devoted to working the ground this past summer.
Having saved what was left to be saved, I tramped through my garden late this evening. Only vestiges of life remain of what once was: Now, the garden lies fallow as winter approaches; now, it is stripped of life; now it fades into a deep sleep.
The outlines of the garden beds themselves preserve the memory of the high summer’s sun that produced an abundance of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, okra, potatoes, and corn; and over there, on that side of the garden, I crawled from row to row, weeding, harvesting, sometimes lost in wonder and awe in that maze of produce.
And now as I slowly pace each erased row, I commit the remnants to their winter’s grave: The plant labels---“Cayenne pepper,” “Bell Pepper,” “Okra,” “Better Boy Tomato,” “Celebrity Tomato,”--stand like miniature tombstones marking the places where the vegetables once grew. I accidentally step on a tomato or pepper resting on the ground, exposed, unburied, ghostly white--- their corpse-like remains reminding me of life’s inevitable cycle. And I feel somehow I’ve intruded on their hallowed ground.
And the dead vines look like slender fingers reaching up from the underworld, desperately trying to grasp one last ray of life before they are mulched into the humus from which they emerged.
Yet, something magical is happening beneath the earth’s surface as nutrients, helped along by earthworms, are preparing the soil for next year’s crop of plants.
Christians have for centuries observed this interim time of the yearly solstice as an opportunity to anticipate the not yet---the birth of Jesus the Christ---even as they grieve the present: the dominance of darkness that still mars the world. The season is called Advent--- the preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth, bringing with it new life in the deadness of winter.
For hundreds of years, God’s garden---his people---thrived only to die again: “You brought us from Egypt as we were a tender vine;…You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land…But now…The boar from the forest devours us, and the wild animals feed on us…Turn us again to yourself, O Lord God Almighty” (Psalm 80:8, 9, 12, 19). For centuries the Hebrew people looked to a time when they would once again be “a well-watered garden” (Isaiah 58:11). And then, quite sudden-like, but by no surprise to the Eternal Eye, in the “fullness of time, God sent forth his son” (Galatians 4:4-5), a light shining “in the darkness” (John 1:5), and for those who believe the Christ-story, a new light and life in the midst of the darkness and the deadness.
Beneath the surface, the mulch had been prepared for the birth of something new and vibrant.
I know, it’s only a vegetable garden, after all, and maybe it’s not necessary to bring God into it. But as the sun sets so gently on the horizon, I stand in the middle of my garden and remember a greater light that shines the way to more wonderful things: a life grounded in the hope of a brighter tomorrow---a day filled with the abundance of all that is new, and good, and everlasting.
All because a child was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
Imagine that: All this, in a simple garden-variety birth…
…of the miraculous kind.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Having saved what was left to be saved, I tramped through my garden late this evening. Only vestiges of life remain of what once was: Now, the garden lies fallow as winter approaches; now, it is stripped of life; now it fades into a deep sleep.
The outlines of the garden beds themselves preserve the memory of the high summer’s sun that produced an abundance of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, okra, potatoes, and corn; and over there, on that side of the garden, I crawled from row to row, weeding, harvesting, sometimes lost in wonder and awe in that maze of produce.
And now as I slowly pace each erased row, I commit the remnants to their winter’s grave: The plant labels---“Cayenne pepper,” “Bell Pepper,” “Okra,” “Better Boy Tomato,” “Celebrity Tomato,”--stand like miniature tombstones marking the places where the vegetables once grew. I accidentally step on a tomato or pepper resting on the ground, exposed, unburied, ghostly white--- their corpse-like remains reminding me of life’s inevitable cycle. And I feel somehow I’ve intruded on their hallowed ground.
And the dead vines look like slender fingers reaching up from the underworld, desperately trying to grasp one last ray of life before they are mulched into the humus from which they emerged.
Yet, something magical is happening beneath the earth’s surface as nutrients, helped along by earthworms, are preparing the soil for next year’s crop of plants.
Christians have for centuries observed this interim time of the yearly solstice as an opportunity to anticipate the not yet---the birth of Jesus the Christ---even as they grieve the present: the dominance of darkness that still mars the world. The season is called Advent--- the preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth, bringing with it new life in the deadness of winter.
For hundreds of years, God’s garden---his people---thrived only to die again: “You brought us from Egypt as we were a tender vine;…You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land…But now…The boar from the forest devours us, and the wild animals feed on us…Turn us again to yourself, O Lord God Almighty” (Psalm 80:8, 9, 12, 19). For centuries the Hebrew people looked to a time when they would once again be “a well-watered garden” (Isaiah 58:11). And then, quite sudden-like, but by no surprise to the Eternal Eye, in the “fullness of time, God sent forth his son” (Galatians 4:4-5), a light shining “in the darkness” (John 1:5), and for those who believe the Christ-story, a new light and life in the midst of the darkness and the deadness.
Beneath the surface, the mulch had been prepared for the birth of something new and vibrant.
I know, it’s only a vegetable garden, after all, and maybe it’s not necessary to bring God into it. But as the sun sets so gently on the horizon, I stand in the middle of my garden and remember a greater light that shines the way to more wonderful things: a life grounded in the hope of a brighter tomorrow---a day filled with the abundance of all that is new, and good, and everlasting.
All because a child was born in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
Imagine that: All this, in a simple garden-variety birth…
…of the miraculous kind.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving
I’ll take the night before Thanksgiving over Christmas Eve any year. Christmas Eve is a tired ol’day, worn out by the flurry of activity preceding it, and by the time it arrives, usually too soon, it’s all out of breath as it plops its burden of stress and strain---last minute shopping, checklists, nagging questions (Did I get her the right gift? Will it fit him? Should I have just given the kids money and been done with it?) ---at your doorstep.
But the night before Thanksgiving is different. At least it is for me. It’s tucked in between Halloween and Christmas, and if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it. While the world rushes to Christmas, Thanksgiving just sits there, calmly inviting whosoever will to come and visit a while.
Some families get together the night before Thanksgiving, and that in itself is something of a miracle. When they do, the focus is usually more on each other than in exchanging gifts.
My family would usually travel to my mom’s side of the family for Thanksgiving. Grandmother’s house was small, simple and plain. By the time we arrived from a three hour trip, it was well nigh impossible to corral my three brothers and me. But somehow they did, and we even liked it. In that little house almost on the prairie in Glencoe, Oklahoma, we visited with each other.
And I got to know my grandmother that way.
Soon we would pile in the car, Grandmother with us, and drive to Aunt Dee’s and Uncle Leo’s house where we would stay the night. Maybe it was because I had just been to Grandmother’s, but their home seemed enormous to me. It allowed plenty of room for roaming, and its hidden nooks, which seemed to me expressly made for hiding, invited us boys into them only so we could leap out of them, scaring unsuspecting victims. At some point in all the jumping and running and hollering and hiding, Uncle Leo’s booming base voice would bellow, “Time for dinner,” and like hungry bear cubs running to their den, we would dash to the table.
And then the calm, allowing space for conversation.
And I got to know my aunt and uncle and cousins that way.
I hope we haven’t forgotten the night before Thanksgiving because it just might be the best preparation for Thanksgiving Day. If we forget it, it’s because we’ve lost our sense of thankfulness; it’s because we’ve become consumers and receivers---getting, receiving, leaving, exiting: “See ya next year,” we wave, rushing, with thoughts of specials on “Black Friday,” toward another commercial Christmas.
Giving thanks isn’t the norm. In the story of the 10 lepers Jesus healed, only one returned to thank him. “Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17), Jesus asked the one who returned. Like so many today, having received what they wanted, they were too busy to say, “Thanks.”
Before you bypass the night before Thanksgiving, try pausing and enjoying it, even if just for a little while. That’s what I plan to do. Hopefully, it will set me on the path to being more thankful.
So, I’m going to step outside, stare into the night sky, and if the stars are out, I’m going to smile as they twinkle back at me. Then I’m going to step inside and give thanks for my family, each one of them.
Then I’m going to call some family members who live far away and thank them for being who they are.
And as I drift off to sleep the night before Thanksgiving, I’m going to give thanks for a God who cares.
And waking to Thanksgiving Day, I’m going to give thanks for the smell of hot coffee brewing, for the glowing sunrise that chases away the early morning fog, for the blue sky or gentle pitter patter of rain, for the turkey and dressing with all the trimmings, for the quiet glow of the setting sun, for the twitter of birds preparing for rest, and for the cycle of life---even for all its spins, and turns, and starts, and stops.
And then, the night before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day will be history once again.
But if we live it right, “thanks living” can become a way of life, making each moment a gift in the most wonderful time of any year.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
But the night before Thanksgiving is different. At least it is for me. It’s tucked in between Halloween and Christmas, and if you’re not careful, you’ll miss it. While the world rushes to Christmas, Thanksgiving just sits there, calmly inviting whosoever will to come and visit a while.
Some families get together the night before Thanksgiving, and that in itself is something of a miracle. When they do, the focus is usually more on each other than in exchanging gifts.
My family would usually travel to my mom’s side of the family for Thanksgiving. Grandmother’s house was small, simple and plain. By the time we arrived from a three hour trip, it was well nigh impossible to corral my three brothers and me. But somehow they did, and we even liked it. In that little house almost on the prairie in Glencoe, Oklahoma, we visited with each other.
And I got to know my grandmother that way.
Soon we would pile in the car, Grandmother with us, and drive to Aunt Dee’s and Uncle Leo’s house where we would stay the night. Maybe it was because I had just been to Grandmother’s, but their home seemed enormous to me. It allowed plenty of room for roaming, and its hidden nooks, which seemed to me expressly made for hiding, invited us boys into them only so we could leap out of them, scaring unsuspecting victims. At some point in all the jumping and running and hollering and hiding, Uncle Leo’s booming base voice would bellow, “Time for dinner,” and like hungry bear cubs running to their den, we would dash to the table.
And then the calm, allowing space for conversation.
And I got to know my aunt and uncle and cousins that way.
I hope we haven’t forgotten the night before Thanksgiving because it just might be the best preparation for Thanksgiving Day. If we forget it, it’s because we’ve lost our sense of thankfulness; it’s because we’ve become consumers and receivers---getting, receiving, leaving, exiting: “See ya next year,” we wave, rushing, with thoughts of specials on “Black Friday,” toward another commercial Christmas.
Giving thanks isn’t the norm. In the story of the 10 lepers Jesus healed, only one returned to thank him. “Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17), Jesus asked the one who returned. Like so many today, having received what they wanted, they were too busy to say, “Thanks.”
Before you bypass the night before Thanksgiving, try pausing and enjoying it, even if just for a little while. That’s what I plan to do. Hopefully, it will set me on the path to being more thankful.
So, I’m going to step outside, stare into the night sky, and if the stars are out, I’m going to smile as they twinkle back at me. Then I’m going to step inside and give thanks for my family, each one of them.
Then I’m going to call some family members who live far away and thank them for being who they are.
And as I drift off to sleep the night before Thanksgiving, I’m going to give thanks for a God who cares.
And waking to Thanksgiving Day, I’m going to give thanks for the smell of hot coffee brewing, for the glowing sunrise that chases away the early morning fog, for the blue sky or gentle pitter patter of rain, for the turkey and dressing with all the trimmings, for the quiet glow of the setting sun, for the twitter of birds preparing for rest, and for the cycle of life---even for all its spins, and turns, and starts, and stops.
And then, the night before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day will be history once again.
But if we live it right, “thanks living” can become a way of life, making each moment a gift in the most wonderful time of any year.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Say it ain't so, Joe
When I first heard the news of Joe Paterno’s failure to do more to protect the kids in the case of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged crime, my first thought was, “Say it ain’t so, Joe”---the line the little boy supposedly spoke to baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson as he walked down the steps of the courthouse after appearing before a grand jury for allegedly fixing the 1919 World Series.
Conspiring to throw a ball game for money, the accusation---never proven--- made to Jackson and seven of his teammates, may be shameful and tragic, but not doing more to stop a man who allegedly raped a 10 year old boy in a locker room shower is not just shameful and tragic, it’s horrifying and disgusting.
The salaciousness of it, the manner in which it was overlooked, and the little ones who could have been saved from molestation---all this stunned a university and a nation.
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
But unfortunately, it is so: "This is a tragedy," Paterno said. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
Why didn’t he? Why did a man who built what he called the “Grand Experiment,”--- combining a championship football program with academic excellence---a man who built a career on the qualities of character and integrity and sought to instill those characteristics in his players--- why, why didn’t he do more?
The institution---in this case Penn State football---became bigger than life and in this instance protecting its life caused a terrible lapse in judgment. Paterno did what was legally required; he didn’t do what was morally right. He shuffled the problem down the hall to the next administrative level and went back to work, recruiting, coaching, and winning. Success can be intoxicating, causing the best of people to rationalize or ignore wrong.
The success of an institution is never worth endangering the lives of children.
The comparison to what happened in the Roman Catholic Church can’t be missed: Jonathan Mahler observed in The New York Times, "The parallels are too striking to ignore. A suspected predator who exploits his position to take advantage of his young charges. The trusting colleagues who don't want to believe it -- and so don't."
And so a pristine image is tarnished, an icon is shattered, a legend has fallen.
Previous to this terrible episode, Paterno spoke on ESPN of his legacy: “You coach when you’re young to prove that you can do the job, and then there comes a point when you’ve got a family and you need to make a certain amount of dollars, and then there comes a point when the money’s got nothing to do with it. It comes to a point where you say to yourself: ‘What are you going to leave?’”
No one ever thought Joe Paterno would leave a mess behind him.
He has been condemned, and rightly so, for what he didn’t do. But Paterno’s life is not over. We should remember the words of historian James Anthony Froude, “The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular and peculiar trial.”
Healing starts where last week’s football game began: with the Penn State and Nebraska players kneeling together at midfield and praying for the victims in this tragedy. Remembering them will hopefully help prevent the further exploitation of children.
Joe will never be able to say it ain’t so; his honor is tarnished. But perhaps in time he can find a way to speak words of healing and maybe remind those who loved him that despite his own failure of integrity, his team’s motto, “success with honor,” is still possible for leaders and followers. Indeed, this horrendous episode can underscore the need for constant vigilance in protecting the honor in all individuals, especially the weak and vulnerable.
Maybe someday Joe will have a voice again, but he will always walk with a painful limp as he tells the sad story.
David B. Whitlock. Ph.D. is Pastor at Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct instructor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com.
Conspiring to throw a ball game for money, the accusation---never proven--- made to Jackson and seven of his teammates, may be shameful and tragic, but not doing more to stop a man who allegedly raped a 10 year old boy in a locker room shower is not just shameful and tragic, it’s horrifying and disgusting.
The salaciousness of it, the manner in which it was overlooked, and the little ones who could have been saved from molestation---all this stunned a university and a nation.
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
But unfortunately, it is so: "This is a tragedy," Paterno said. "It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."
Why didn’t he? Why did a man who built what he called the “Grand Experiment,”--- combining a championship football program with academic excellence---a man who built a career on the qualities of character and integrity and sought to instill those characteristics in his players--- why, why didn’t he do more?
The institution---in this case Penn State football---became bigger than life and in this instance protecting its life caused a terrible lapse in judgment. Paterno did what was legally required; he didn’t do what was morally right. He shuffled the problem down the hall to the next administrative level and went back to work, recruiting, coaching, and winning. Success can be intoxicating, causing the best of people to rationalize or ignore wrong.
The success of an institution is never worth endangering the lives of children.
The comparison to what happened in the Roman Catholic Church can’t be missed: Jonathan Mahler observed in The New York Times, "The parallels are too striking to ignore. A suspected predator who exploits his position to take advantage of his young charges. The trusting colleagues who don't want to believe it -- and so don't."
And so a pristine image is tarnished, an icon is shattered, a legend has fallen.
Previous to this terrible episode, Paterno spoke on ESPN of his legacy: “You coach when you’re young to prove that you can do the job, and then there comes a point when you’ve got a family and you need to make a certain amount of dollars, and then there comes a point when the money’s got nothing to do with it. It comes to a point where you say to yourself: ‘What are you going to leave?’”
No one ever thought Joe Paterno would leave a mess behind him.
He has been condemned, and rightly so, for what he didn’t do. But Paterno’s life is not over. We should remember the words of historian James Anthony Froude, “The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular and peculiar trial.”
Healing starts where last week’s football game began: with the Penn State and Nebraska players kneeling together at midfield and praying for the victims in this tragedy. Remembering them will hopefully help prevent the further exploitation of children.
Joe will never be able to say it ain’t so; his honor is tarnished. But perhaps in time he can find a way to speak words of healing and maybe remind those who loved him that despite his own failure of integrity, his team’s motto, “success with honor,” is still possible for leaders and followers. Indeed, this horrendous episode can underscore the need for constant vigilance in protecting the honor in all individuals, especially the weak and vulnerable.
Maybe someday Joe will have a voice again, but he will always walk with a painful limp as he tells the sad story.
David B. Whitlock. Ph.D. is Pastor at Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct instructor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Listen before telling of your own beliefs
We had just left the Hindu temple when I noticed the red dot on my mother’s forehead. It was the “tilaki,” the third eye or mind's eye, associated with many Hindu gods, also symbolizing the idea of meditation and spiritual enlightenment. I, a recent graduate of a high school education, feeding on my scholastic possibilities, feeling strong in my evangelical superiority, upbraided my mother: “You let them mark you! And, that’s a false religion.”
My mother was neither intimidated or perturbed by her 19 year old son: “How else can I find out what they think and how they worship if I don’t interact with them?”she calmly responded. “And besides,” she said repressing a chuckle at my religious apoplexy, “just because they put the red mark on me doesn’t mean I believe it. Remember son, the importance of civility, cordiality, and respect before you tell them about your faith.”
It was lesson I took to heart. “Maybe there is some truth in their faith,” I surmised. “Perhaps I don’t have an exclusive corner on all eternal truth.”
I was with my parents those thirty- some years ago, on a six-week medical mission ministry to Bangalore, India. It was then that Mom and I had had that brief conversation that redirected me to a more sympathetic view of other faiths.
I hadn’t thought of that encounter with Hinduism for years until I read of Senator David Williams’ attack on Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s participation in a “ground blessing” Hindu ceremony where the site of an Indian company is building a factory in Elizabethtown, Ky. Williams took issue with Beshear: “He’s sitting down there with his legs crossed, participating in Hindu prayers with a dot on his forehead with incense burning around him. I don’t know what the man was thinking.”
Williiams himself has taken it on the chin for his remarks as many across the state were angered by his criticism of Beshear in the heat of the campaign for governor.
But Williams, despite his religious hyperbole--- was it simply a last gasp endeavor to reverse his lag in the polls? ---unwittingly did us a favor: He broached the question about the interaction of various faiths in a pluralistic society, such as ours, and reflection on the issue may help us clarify where we stand on the matter.
In the increasingly smaller and more pluralistic world we live in, it’s essential that people of different faiths learn to get along with each other. Today, Christians are persecuted in various parts of the Middle East. The steady resurgence of Tibetan Buddhism is raising tensions in China as followers of that faith seek religious rights. And in Carrolton, Ohio one sect within the Amish community has taken up the practice of forcibly cutting off the beards of men in the more mainstream Amish faith.
The more intense some grow in their own ideology, the more intolerant they become of others with different beliefs. But passion for one’s faith doesn’t have to translate into offensive words or harmful actions towards others.
And that brings me back to momma: “Remember son, the importance of civility, cordiality, and respect before you tell them about your faith.” That may or not be the right tactic when you are behind in a political race, as was Senator David Williams, but it deserves a look in the real world we live in.
We are linked with others, like it or not--- and closer culturally, economically, and religiously, than ever before in human history. Getting along doesn’t mean we have to give up the uniqueness of our faith traditions, but that we honor the endeavor of truth in others. This involves genuine dialogue, which presupposes that we know the persons to whom we speak and that we respect them in their cultural and religious identity. It also means that we expose ourselves, in the sense that we allow for the possibility of more truth in our own belief system. For Christians, giving an account of the hope within, (I Peter 3:15), may require proclaiming the gospel, free from a cultural triumphalism that expects those in “inferior” cultures to receive automatically the particular brand of “good news” various Christian denominations may proffer.
In essence, it means respecting and honoring the faiths of other people. It requires an attitude of humility---something those who engage in a win/lose form of religious conversation aren’t accustomed to having.
But maybe it’s time they did.
Just ask David Williams.
David B. Whitlock is pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Kentucky. He also teaches on the adjunct faculty at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com. or visit his website, davidbwhitlo
My mother was neither intimidated or perturbed by her 19 year old son: “How else can I find out what they think and how they worship if I don’t interact with them?”she calmly responded. “And besides,” she said repressing a chuckle at my religious apoplexy, “just because they put the red mark on me doesn’t mean I believe it. Remember son, the importance of civility, cordiality, and respect before you tell them about your faith.”
It was lesson I took to heart. “Maybe there is some truth in their faith,” I surmised. “Perhaps I don’t have an exclusive corner on all eternal truth.”
I was with my parents those thirty- some years ago, on a six-week medical mission ministry to Bangalore, India. It was then that Mom and I had had that brief conversation that redirected me to a more sympathetic view of other faiths.
I hadn’t thought of that encounter with Hinduism for years until I read of Senator David Williams’ attack on Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s participation in a “ground blessing” Hindu ceremony where the site of an Indian company is building a factory in Elizabethtown, Ky. Williams took issue with Beshear: “He’s sitting down there with his legs crossed, participating in Hindu prayers with a dot on his forehead with incense burning around him. I don’t know what the man was thinking.”
Williiams himself has taken it on the chin for his remarks as many across the state were angered by his criticism of Beshear in the heat of the campaign for governor.
But Williams, despite his religious hyperbole--- was it simply a last gasp endeavor to reverse his lag in the polls? ---unwittingly did us a favor: He broached the question about the interaction of various faiths in a pluralistic society, such as ours, and reflection on the issue may help us clarify where we stand on the matter.
In the increasingly smaller and more pluralistic world we live in, it’s essential that people of different faiths learn to get along with each other. Today, Christians are persecuted in various parts of the Middle East. The steady resurgence of Tibetan Buddhism is raising tensions in China as followers of that faith seek religious rights. And in Carrolton, Ohio one sect within the Amish community has taken up the practice of forcibly cutting off the beards of men in the more mainstream Amish faith.
The more intense some grow in their own ideology, the more intolerant they become of others with different beliefs. But passion for one’s faith doesn’t have to translate into offensive words or harmful actions towards others.
And that brings me back to momma: “Remember son, the importance of civility, cordiality, and respect before you tell them about your faith.” That may or not be the right tactic when you are behind in a political race, as was Senator David Williams, but it deserves a look in the real world we live in.
We are linked with others, like it or not--- and closer culturally, economically, and religiously, than ever before in human history. Getting along doesn’t mean we have to give up the uniqueness of our faith traditions, but that we honor the endeavor of truth in others. This involves genuine dialogue, which presupposes that we know the persons to whom we speak and that we respect them in their cultural and religious identity. It also means that we expose ourselves, in the sense that we allow for the possibility of more truth in our own belief system. For Christians, giving an account of the hope within, (I Peter 3:15), may require proclaiming the gospel, free from a cultural triumphalism that expects those in “inferior” cultures to receive automatically the particular brand of “good news” various Christian denominations may proffer.
In essence, it means respecting and honoring the faiths of other people. It requires an attitude of humility---something those who engage in a win/lose form of religious conversation aren’t accustomed to having.
But maybe it’s time they did.
Just ask David Williams.
David B. Whitlock is pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Kentucky. He also teaches on the adjunct faculty at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com. or visit his website, davidbwhitlo
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Keep the light on: Don’t miss the victory
I couldn’t take it any longer. Fatigued at the end of the work week and convinced my St. Louis Cardinals would not survive Game 6 of the World Series, I turned the light off and was fast asleep by 11:15 p.m., EST.
Early the next morning, Lori asked me who won. “Oh, the Texas Rangers did,” I mournfully informed her. “I stayed with the Cardinals until they left the bases loaded and fell behind 7-4.”
I didn’t go into detail because she is not a baseball fan, but the Cardinals weren’t playing well, I thought. Not only had they left the bases loaded and blown a chance to take the lead, they had also committed three errors---something they hadn’t done in a World Series since game 3 of the 1943 Series. I had tried to help my team by repeating my baseball mantra, “Get a hit, get a hit, get a hit, get a hit,” or “Strike out, strike out, strike out, strike out,” but the baseball gods weren’t listening: Our pitchers were getting hammered and even Albert Pujols was hitless. So assured was I that the Cardinals were dead that I had not even bothered to turn on the TV and check the score, just in case…
Just in case of what? That they would win? No way.
I was pouring myself another cup of coffee when I heard Lori shout from upstairs: “David, your team won! They made a comeback and beat the Rangers.” I raced to the TV and incredulously watched the 6 a.m. sports summary of the Cardinals’ victory; I couldn’t believe it, but it happened: They had miraculously won.
I had missed one the greatest World Series games ever.
There was a lot of baseball left after I had called it quits. The Cardinals rallied behind the bats of Pujols, Lance Berkman, and Allan Craig, as the game went back and forth and into extra innings. Twice the Rangers were one strike away from winning the game and the Series. (The last time a team blew a lead with only 1 strike away from the championship was the 1992 Blue Jays in Atlanta.) Then Cardinals David Freese, who would be named the World Series MVP the next night when the Cards won the Series with a 6-2 win over the Rangers, homered in the bottom of the 11th to force the first game 7 of the Series since 2002.
It was described as “one of the best (World Series) games ever,” by sports columnist Jeff Passan.
And I missed it.
Later that morning as I was smiling at the thought of their victory, and a bit remorseful at not having cheered them through it, I think I had a tiny inkling of what the followers of Jesus must have felt three days later, after they had turned off the light of hope and cried themselves to sleep, convinced that the stone covering the tomb was a permanent fixture, wondering why they had spent three years following someone who wasn’t the Victor after all.
They missed it too.
“You had to be here to believe it,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “We never quit trying. I know that’s kind of corny, but the fact is we never quit trying.”
And said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, “Those two [game-saving] at-bats were epic and historic as far as Cardinal lore. No matter what, if we’re down to our last strike, we don’t quit.”
I understand gentlemen; I’ll keep swinging, too.
And most of all, I’ll keep the light on and one eye open until He returns in victory.
I won’t miss that one.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com.
Early the next morning, Lori asked me who won. “Oh, the Texas Rangers did,” I mournfully informed her. “I stayed with the Cardinals until they left the bases loaded and fell behind 7-4.”
I didn’t go into detail because she is not a baseball fan, but the Cardinals weren’t playing well, I thought. Not only had they left the bases loaded and blown a chance to take the lead, they had also committed three errors---something they hadn’t done in a World Series since game 3 of the 1943 Series. I had tried to help my team by repeating my baseball mantra, “Get a hit, get a hit, get a hit, get a hit,” or “Strike out, strike out, strike out, strike out,” but the baseball gods weren’t listening: Our pitchers were getting hammered and even Albert Pujols was hitless. So assured was I that the Cardinals were dead that I had not even bothered to turn on the TV and check the score, just in case…
Just in case of what? That they would win? No way.
I was pouring myself another cup of coffee when I heard Lori shout from upstairs: “David, your team won! They made a comeback and beat the Rangers.” I raced to the TV and incredulously watched the 6 a.m. sports summary of the Cardinals’ victory; I couldn’t believe it, but it happened: They had miraculously won.
I had missed one the greatest World Series games ever.
There was a lot of baseball left after I had called it quits. The Cardinals rallied behind the bats of Pujols, Lance Berkman, and Allan Craig, as the game went back and forth and into extra innings. Twice the Rangers were one strike away from winning the game and the Series. (The last time a team blew a lead with only 1 strike away from the championship was the 1992 Blue Jays in Atlanta.) Then Cardinals David Freese, who would be named the World Series MVP the next night when the Cards won the Series with a 6-2 win over the Rangers, homered in the bottom of the 11th to force the first game 7 of the Series since 2002.
It was described as “one of the best (World Series) games ever,” by sports columnist Jeff Passan.
And I missed it.
Later that morning as I was smiling at the thought of their victory, and a bit remorseful at not having cheered them through it, I think I had a tiny inkling of what the followers of Jesus must have felt three days later, after they had turned off the light of hope and cried themselves to sleep, convinced that the stone covering the tomb was a permanent fixture, wondering why they had spent three years following someone who wasn’t the Victor after all.
They missed it too.
“You had to be here to believe it,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “We never quit trying. I know that’s kind of corny, but the fact is we never quit trying.”
And said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, “Those two [game-saving] at-bats were epic and historic as far as Cardinal lore. No matter what, if we’re down to our last strike, we don’t quit.”
I understand gentlemen; I’ll keep swinging, too.
And most of all, I’ll keep the light on and one eye open until He returns in victory.
I won’t miss that one.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Occupy in a Culture of Discontent
“Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life
Trying to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die”
---The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony”
The first time I saw one of the many people in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement holding a sign that said, “We are the 99%,” I thought, “That has to include me. I’m certainly not in the 1%.”
There is some comfort in being in the 99%.; at least I know I am not floating all alone on a sea of economic uncertainty.
I remember reading about the Great Depression when I was in elementary school. Dad assured me it would never happen again, “…what with all the checks and balances we have since those dark depression days.”
“But what if it did happen again, Dad? What would we do?”
“In that case,” he tried to assure me, “everyone would be in trouble, and we would all be in it together.”
And now, we are all in it together.
At least the 99% are.
The 99% who occupied Wall Street did so at least in part to band together and find some comfort in a community of distress.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement was conceived in a bed of dissatisfaction, birthed in economic hard times, and is struggling to take its first baby steps in the playpen of world crises.
Regardless of how one views its current status--- Is it primarily mainstream leftism? Just another example of radical extremism? A positive expression of progressive activism?--- what should concern us is its future, for the movement can be a shining light toward a better tomorrow, a dark cloud raining disorder upon an already disgruntled society, or an evaporating fog which when lifted leaves everything quite the same.
Whatever happens to it, the movement is itself symbolic of the culture of discontent that pervades the 99%: Opportunity has fallen far short of aspirations; expectations have exceeded painful realities; goals have evaporated on a horizon forecasting misery.
The United States economy creeps at an anemic growth rate of 2%; college students are graduating with abysmal prospects for jobs while saddled with burdensome college loans; the unemployment rate of people over 55 has doubled since 2007, and those over 55 who have lost jobs during the recession are less likely to find new ones and when they do, it takes 30% longer, according to a report on NBC nightly news; an AARP poll reveals that between 2007-2010, 24.7% of people over 50 exhausted their life savings; the 9.1% unemployment rate doesn’t even include the millions of jobless Americans who have been unemployed so long that they have lost hope and are no longer looking for work; and perhaps worst of all, the misery index---a combination of inflation plus unemployment rates---has risen to 13.0, the highest since 1983.
Whether the 99% includes both the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers, or more likely, a million different people from around the world, the fact is, people are clamoring for a change that’s deeper than mere cosmetic surgery on the way things are; they are seeking a revolutionary transformation of the way we do things economically; and they want the financial pain they feel to be addressed.
This will involve more than another job’s plan, or stimulus package, although that may be a place to start. But, both Washington and Wall Street should first listen rather than dismissing the 99% as too radical, or mistaken, or irrelevant. Then the White House and the Financial District should cooperate with the people in solving the fundamental problems in our broken economy. And until they do, the Occupiers must occupy.
Let’s hope the 99% can stay on track for positive change and that the 1% ---whether located in Washington, Wall Street, London, or Melbourne---will also see the need to occupy and help the rest of us as we together look for ways to create a new economy and give hope to the hopeless in a culture of discontent.
Otherwise, at least economically, much of the 99% will be left with a life that is, sadly---not much better than a bittersweet symphony.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Trying to make ends meet
You're a slave to money then you die”
---The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony”
The first time I saw one of the many people in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement holding a sign that said, “We are the 99%,” I thought, “That has to include me. I’m certainly not in the 1%.”
There is some comfort in being in the 99%.; at least I know I am not floating all alone on a sea of economic uncertainty.
I remember reading about the Great Depression when I was in elementary school. Dad assured me it would never happen again, “…what with all the checks and balances we have since those dark depression days.”
“But what if it did happen again, Dad? What would we do?”
“In that case,” he tried to assure me, “everyone would be in trouble, and we would all be in it together.”
And now, we are all in it together.
At least the 99% are.
The 99% who occupied Wall Street did so at least in part to band together and find some comfort in a community of distress.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement was conceived in a bed of dissatisfaction, birthed in economic hard times, and is struggling to take its first baby steps in the playpen of world crises.
Regardless of how one views its current status--- Is it primarily mainstream leftism? Just another example of radical extremism? A positive expression of progressive activism?--- what should concern us is its future, for the movement can be a shining light toward a better tomorrow, a dark cloud raining disorder upon an already disgruntled society, or an evaporating fog which when lifted leaves everything quite the same.
Whatever happens to it, the movement is itself symbolic of the culture of discontent that pervades the 99%: Opportunity has fallen far short of aspirations; expectations have exceeded painful realities; goals have evaporated on a horizon forecasting misery.
The United States economy creeps at an anemic growth rate of 2%; college students are graduating with abysmal prospects for jobs while saddled with burdensome college loans; the unemployment rate of people over 55 has doubled since 2007, and those over 55 who have lost jobs during the recession are less likely to find new ones and when they do, it takes 30% longer, according to a report on NBC nightly news; an AARP poll reveals that between 2007-2010, 24.7% of people over 50 exhausted their life savings; the 9.1% unemployment rate doesn’t even include the millions of jobless Americans who have been unemployed so long that they have lost hope and are no longer looking for work; and perhaps worst of all, the misery index---a combination of inflation plus unemployment rates---has risen to 13.0, the highest since 1983.
Whether the 99% includes both the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers, or more likely, a million different people from around the world, the fact is, people are clamoring for a change that’s deeper than mere cosmetic surgery on the way things are; they are seeking a revolutionary transformation of the way we do things economically; and they want the financial pain they feel to be addressed.
This will involve more than another job’s plan, or stimulus package, although that may be a place to start. But, both Washington and Wall Street should first listen rather than dismissing the 99% as too radical, or mistaken, or irrelevant. Then the White House and the Financial District should cooperate with the people in solving the fundamental problems in our broken economy. And until they do, the Occupiers must occupy.
Let’s hope the 99% can stay on track for positive change and that the 1% ---whether located in Washington, Wall Street, London, or Melbourne---will also see the need to occupy and help the rest of us as we together look for ways to create a new economy and give hope to the hopeless in a culture of discontent.
Otherwise, at least economically, much of the 99% will be left with a life that is, sadly---not much better than a bittersweet symphony.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Lost in a GOP Gameday Nightmare
While awaiting the Republican presidential candidates’ debate, I fell asleep, sitting there on my couch. I awoke with a jolt, glanced at my watch, and realized the debates had already started. Hurriedly turning the channel to CNN, I anticipated the debate, this one broadcast live from Las Vegas.
Instead I got College Game Day. I flipped the channel back and tried again: still College Game Day. I checked my clicker and tried once more: College Game Day again. In fact, every channel on TV was College Game Day.
I rubbed my eyes. “This can’t be,” I thought, “I must be in some kind of media warp.”
But there was Chris Fowler hosting College Game Day, “Live,” he was saying, “from Las Vegas.”
“What?” I asked. “The Republican debate on College Game Day?”
But the camera spanned the football stadium, and sure enough, right there on the field, the Republican presidential candidates were warming up in football uniforms.
Then I saw the Game Day crew: Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard. It was true; I could hear them speaking:
FOWLER: “This promises to be another wild one.”
HERBSTREIT: “No, doubt. And you’ve got to like Herman Cain as a favorite tonight. He’s rocketed like a meteor to the top of the polls and appears to be on a roll; his offense is really clicking with that 9-9-9 plan. It’s amazing, but this unlikely candidate could run the tables and find himself in a BCS bowl or even in the Championship Game with President Obama.”
CORSO: “Not so fast! Michelle Bachman has slipped, but she’s not done yet. The feisty little former IRS tax attorney has an aggressive offense that will shred that 9-9-9 plan by exposing its inconsistencies and mistakes. Cain better be ready! He could go down as quickly as he shot to the top. ”
HOWARD: “I don’t think any of you guys comprehend the efficiency and professionalism of Mitt Romney’s offense and defense. He may not be very exciting, but he’s paid his dues and has the experience to get the job done. And just look at him down there warming up. That uniform fits him perfectly. I mean, he looks sooo quarterbackish.”
HERBSTREIT: “Well, I tell you, Obama would love to face off with him; the clash between Obamacare and Romneycare could be revealing, an epic matchup.”
CORSO: “Not so fast, again! You’re forgetting Governor Perry. Remember, you don’t mess with Texas.”
FOWLER: “Where is the governor, anyway? I haven’t seen him on the field.”
HOWARD: “He’s just reentered the stadium. He was scheduled to appear at a pre-game prayer breakfast, and now he seems to be scooting away from a preacher who’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Thank God I’m a Baptist,’ on one side and ‘Mormons Need not Apply,’ on the other.”
At that moment, President Obama himself joined the Game Day crew, smiling, wearing sun glasses, and sporting a ball cap that said, “It’s not my Fault.” (41% of the fans booed; 22% cheered; and 37% were chanting, “We want Chris Christie.”)
FOWLER: “Welcome, Mr. President. Hey, how much did you pay for that snazzy cap?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “$29.25, including tax.”
CORSO: “Taxes, ugh. That’s ridiculously high!”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You’ve got to remember the financial situation I inherited from my predecessor and what with this Republican Congress…”
CORSO: “Oh, I wasn’t being critical; I think you’re doing a fine job.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You do? Really? Oh, well, sorry, in that case, I’ll just sit down and scout these candidates as they rip each other. And, haha, I don’t even have to get sweaty and dirty! I can just relax and enjoy the show.”
Everyone laughed; the College Game Day crew faded as the camera spanned the lights of Vegas from far above the city.
Then I thought I could hear someone call out my name: “David, David.”
It was my wife: “You must have fallen asleep again,” she consoled.
“You won’t believe it.” I said. “I went to a political debate and a football game broke out. Was it in a dream? Was it just a dream? I know, yes I know. It seemed so very real, seemed so real to me. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
“Sure,” she sarcastically quipped.
“She’s right,” I admitted, “that was just a dream.”
Walking away from the TV, I could barely hear David Gregory hosting Meet the Press. “Welcome to today’s program,” I faintly heard him saying, “our panel of political experts will continue our debate of which college football team will win the national championship…”
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Instead I got College Game Day. I flipped the channel back and tried again: still College Game Day. I checked my clicker and tried once more: College Game Day again. In fact, every channel on TV was College Game Day.
I rubbed my eyes. “This can’t be,” I thought, “I must be in some kind of media warp.”
But there was Chris Fowler hosting College Game Day, “Live,” he was saying, “from Las Vegas.”
“What?” I asked. “The Republican debate on College Game Day?”
But the camera spanned the football stadium, and sure enough, right there on the field, the Republican presidential candidates were warming up in football uniforms.
Then I saw the Game Day crew: Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard. It was true; I could hear them speaking:
FOWLER: “This promises to be another wild one.”
HERBSTREIT: “No, doubt. And you’ve got to like Herman Cain as a favorite tonight. He’s rocketed like a meteor to the top of the polls and appears to be on a roll; his offense is really clicking with that 9-9-9 plan. It’s amazing, but this unlikely candidate could run the tables and find himself in a BCS bowl or even in the Championship Game with President Obama.”
CORSO: “Not so fast! Michelle Bachman has slipped, but she’s not done yet. The feisty little former IRS tax attorney has an aggressive offense that will shred that 9-9-9 plan by exposing its inconsistencies and mistakes. Cain better be ready! He could go down as quickly as he shot to the top. ”
HOWARD: “I don’t think any of you guys comprehend the efficiency and professionalism of Mitt Romney’s offense and defense. He may not be very exciting, but he’s paid his dues and has the experience to get the job done. And just look at him down there warming up. That uniform fits him perfectly. I mean, he looks sooo quarterbackish.”
HERBSTREIT: “Well, I tell you, Obama would love to face off with him; the clash between Obamacare and Romneycare could be revealing, an epic matchup.”
CORSO: “Not so fast, again! You’re forgetting Governor Perry. Remember, you don’t mess with Texas.”
FOWLER: “Where is the governor, anyway? I haven’t seen him on the field.”
HOWARD: “He’s just reentered the stadium. He was scheduled to appear at a pre-game prayer breakfast, and now he seems to be scooting away from a preacher who’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Thank God I’m a Baptist,’ on one side and ‘Mormons Need not Apply,’ on the other.”
At that moment, President Obama himself joined the Game Day crew, smiling, wearing sun glasses, and sporting a ball cap that said, “It’s not my Fault.” (41% of the fans booed; 22% cheered; and 37% were chanting, “We want Chris Christie.”)
FOWLER: “Welcome, Mr. President. Hey, how much did you pay for that snazzy cap?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “$29.25, including tax.”
CORSO: “Taxes, ugh. That’s ridiculously high!”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You’ve got to remember the financial situation I inherited from my predecessor and what with this Republican Congress…”
CORSO: “Oh, I wasn’t being critical; I think you’re doing a fine job.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You do? Really? Oh, well, sorry, in that case, I’ll just sit down and scout these candidates as they rip each other. And, haha, I don’t even have to get sweaty and dirty! I can just relax and enjoy the show.”
Everyone laughed; the College Game Day crew faded as the camera spanned the lights of Vegas from far above the city.
Then I thought I could hear someone call out my name: “David, David.”
It was my wife: “You must have fallen asleep again,” she consoled.
“You won’t believe it.” I said. “I went to a political debate and a football game broke out. Was it in a dream? Was it just a dream? I know, yes I know. It seemed so very real, seemed so real to me. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
“Sure,” she sarcastically quipped.
“She’s right,” I admitted, “that was just a dream.”
Walking away from the TV, I could barely hear David Gregory hosting Meet the Press. “Welcome to today’s program,” I faintly heard him saying, “our panel of political experts will continue our debate of which college football team will win the national championship…”
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Lost in a GOP Gameday Nightmare
While awaiting the Republican presidential candidates’ debate, I fell asleep, sitting there on my couch. I awoke with a jolt, glanced at my watch, and realized the debates had already started. Hurriedly turning the channel to CNN, I anticipated the debate, this one broadcast live from Las Vegas.
Instead I got College Game Day. I flipped the channel back and tried again: still College Game Day. I checked my clicker and tried once more: College Game Day again. In fact, every channel on TV was College Game Day.
I rubbed my eyes. “This can’t be,” I thought, “I must be in some kind of media warp.”
But there was Chris Fowler hosting College Game Day, “Live,” he was saying, “from Las Vegas.”
“What?” I asked. “The Republican debate on College Game Day?”
But the camera spanned the football stadium, and sure enough, right there on the field, the Republican presidential candidates were warming up in football uniforms.
Then I saw the Game Day crew: Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard. It was true; I could hear them speaking:
FOWLER: “This promises to be another wild one.”
HERBSTREIT: “No, doubt. And you’ve got to like Herman Cain as a favorite tonight. He’s rocketed like a meteor to the top of the polls and appears to be on a roll; his offense is really clicking with that 9-9-9 plan. It’s amazing, but this unlikely candidate could run the tables and find himself in a BCS bowl or even in the Championship Game with President Obama.”
CORSO: “Not so fast! Michelle Bachman has slipped, but she’s not done yet. The feisty little former IRS tax attorney has an aggressive offense that will shred that 9-9-9 plan by exposing its inconsistencies and mistakes. Cain better be ready! He could go down as quickly as he shot to the top. ”
HOWARD: “I don’t think any of you guys comprehend the efficiency and professionalism of Mitt Romney’s offense and defense. He may not be very exciting, but he’s paid his dues and has the experience to get the job done. And just look at him down there warming up. That uniform fits him perfectly. I mean, he looks sooo quarterbackish.”
HERBSTREIT: “Well, I tell you, Obama would love to face off with him; the clash between Obamacare and Romneycare could be revealing, an epic matchup.”
CORSO: “Not so fast, again! You’re forgetting Governor Perry. Remember, you don’t mess with Texas.”
FOWLER: “Where is the governor, anyway? I haven’t seen him on the field.”
HOWARD: “He’s just reentered the stadium. He was scheduled to appear at a pre-game prayer breakfast, and now he seems to be scooting away from a preacher who’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Thank God I’m a Baptist,’ on one side and ‘Mormons Need not Apply,’ on the other.”
At that moment, President Obama himself joined the Game Day crew, smiling, wearing sun glasses, and sporting a ball cap that said, “It’s not my Fault.” (41% of the fans booed; 22% cheered; and 37% were chanting, “We want Chris Christie.”)
FOWLER: “Welcome, Mr. President. Hey, how much did you pay for that snazzy cap?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “$29.25, including tax.”
CORSO: “Taxes, ugh. That’s ridiculously high!”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You’ve got to remember the financial situation I inherited from my predecessor and what with this Republican Congress…”
CORSO: “Oh, I wasn’t being critical; I think you’re doing a fine job.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You do? Really? Oh, well, sorry, in that case, I’ll just sit down and scout these candidates as they rip each other. And, haha, I don’t even have to get sweaty and dirty! I can just relax and enjoy the show.”
Everyone laughed; the College Game Day crew faded as the camera spanned the lights of Vegas from far above the city.
Then I thought I could hear someone call out my name: “David, David.”
It was my wife: “You must have fallen asleep again,” she consoled.
“You won’t believe it.” I said. “I went to a political debate and a football game broke out. Was it in a dream? Was it just a dream? I know, yes I know. It seemed so very real, seemed so real to me. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
“Sure,” she sarcastically quipped.
“She’s right,” I admitted, “that was just a dream.”
Walking away from the TV, I could barely hear David Gregory hosting Meet the Press. “Welcome to today’s program,” I faintly heard him saying, “our panel of political experts will continue our debate of which college football team will win the national championship…”
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Instead I got College Game Day. I flipped the channel back and tried again: still College Game Day. I checked my clicker and tried once more: College Game Day again. In fact, every channel on TV was College Game Day.
I rubbed my eyes. “This can’t be,” I thought, “I must be in some kind of media warp.”
But there was Chris Fowler hosting College Game Day, “Live,” he was saying, “from Las Vegas.”
“What?” I asked. “The Republican debate on College Game Day?”
But the camera spanned the football stadium, and sure enough, right there on the field, the Republican presidential candidates were warming up in football uniforms.
Then I saw the Game Day crew: Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard. It was true; I could hear them speaking:
FOWLER: “This promises to be another wild one.”
HERBSTREIT: “No, doubt. And you’ve got to like Herman Cain as a favorite tonight. He’s rocketed like a meteor to the top of the polls and appears to be on a roll; his offense is really clicking with that 9-9-9 plan. It’s amazing, but this unlikely candidate could run the tables and find himself in a BCS bowl or even in the Championship Game with President Obama.”
CORSO: “Not so fast! Michelle Bachman has slipped, but she’s not done yet. The feisty little former IRS tax attorney has an aggressive offense that will shred that 9-9-9 plan by exposing its inconsistencies and mistakes. Cain better be ready! He could go down as quickly as he shot to the top. ”
HOWARD: “I don’t think any of you guys comprehend the efficiency and professionalism of Mitt Romney’s offense and defense. He may not be very exciting, but he’s paid his dues and has the experience to get the job done. And just look at him down there warming up. That uniform fits him perfectly. I mean, he looks sooo quarterbackish.”
HERBSTREIT: “Well, I tell you, Obama would love to face off with him; the clash between Obamacare and Romneycare could be revealing, an epic matchup.”
CORSO: “Not so fast, again! You’re forgetting Governor Perry. Remember, you don’t mess with Texas.”
FOWLER: “Where is the governor, anyway? I haven’t seen him on the field.”
HOWARD: “He’s just reentered the stadium. He was scheduled to appear at a pre-game prayer breakfast, and now he seems to be scooting away from a preacher who’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Thank God I’m a Baptist,’ on one side and ‘Mormons Need not Apply,’ on the other.”
At that moment, President Obama himself joined the Game Day crew, smiling, wearing sun glasses, and sporting a ball cap that said, “It’s not my Fault.” (41% of the fans booed; 22% cheered; and 37% were chanting, “We want Chris Christie.”)
FOWLER: “Welcome, Mr. President. Hey, how much did you pay for that snazzy cap?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “$29.25, including tax.”
CORSO: “Taxes, ugh. That’s ridiculously high!”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You’ve got to remember the financial situation I inherited from my predecessor and what with this Republican Congress…”
CORSO: “Oh, I wasn’t being critical; I think you’re doing a fine job.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “You do? Really? Oh, well, sorry, in that case, I’ll just sit down and scout these candidates as they rip each other. And, haha, I don’t even have to get sweaty and dirty! I can just relax and enjoy the show.”
Everyone laughed; the College Game Day crew faded as the camera spanned the lights of Vegas from far above the city.
Then I thought I could hear someone call out my name: “David, David.”
It was my wife: “You must have fallen asleep again,” she consoled.
“You won’t believe it.” I said. “I went to a political debate and a football game broke out. Was it in a dream? Was it just a dream? I know, yes I know. It seemed so very real, seemed so real to me. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”
“Sure,” she sarcastically quipped.
“She’s right,” I admitted, “that was just a dream.”
Walking away from the TV, I could barely hear David Gregory hosting Meet the Press. “Welcome to today’s program,” I faintly heard him saying, “our panel of political experts will continue our debate of which college football team will win the national championship…”
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. at davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Always a reason for hope, even with cancer
The words had inadvertently found their way on the printed page; they were obviously not meant for anyone to read. Only two words: “No hope.” But they said so much. Too much.
They were printed next to the name of a cancer patient for whom we prayed. I flinched when I read them. No one is beyond hope--- not even those who appear to be victims in the last stages of cancer.
Cancer is indeed a powerful foe. It’s taken down the tough (Lyle Alzado, Mickey Mantle, Walter Payton), the entertaining (Bette Davis, Milton Berle, Jack Benny), the rugged (Yul Brenner, U.S. Grant, John Wayne), and the brilliant (James Baldwin, Steve Jobs, Enrico Fermi), just to mention a few. There is no vaccination against cancer, and no society is cancer free. You have a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor with cancer.
Maybe you have cancer.
According to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, because we are living longer, cancer has more time to strike us, making it a “new normal,” in our lives. In advanced nations, cancer attacks two to three people during their lifetime. But we are making progress in the fight against cancer. Although the incidence of cancer is rising, cancer mortality is actually going down, says Dr. Mukherjee.
And so we hope.
Yet even as we hope in advances of medical technology and the benefits of healthier lifestyles, we know our time is limited. As cancer victim Steve Jobs said in his commencement address at Stanford University shortly after his cancer diagnosis in 2003: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one had escaped it.”
I’m not sure what Jobs’s concept of the afterlife was. A convert to Zen Buddhism, perhaps his hope was in an enlightened state of rebirth, or a dissolving into a blissful nothingness. Or maybe Zen provided the underpinnings for a more secular form of hope with no need of dogma or revelation, where this world is all there is and all we need. Christianity Today editor Andy Crouch’s observation in The Wall Street Journal seems quite correct: “Mr. Jobs’s Apple is a religion of hope in a hopeless world---hope that your mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be discarded like a 2001 iPod.” As Crouch notes, for many in this secular age, that’s enough.
But for others it’s not.
For the one whose future was mistakenly labeled, “no hope,” it wasn’t. He clings to hope---a hope that he, still in the prime of young adulthood, will by God’s mercy overcome cancer and avoid death, at least for a while, at least until he can leave the hospital where he has been confined for more months than he cares to count, imprisoned in a bed where he hears of life on the outside, of days other people enjoy, days of sunshine and fun, of breathtaking sunrises and glowing sunsets, of weddings and parties with friends, days stolen from him by cancer’s curse; days forever gone, dissolved by the slow drip of chemotherapy.
As I conclude my prayer, he signs the cross---a motion of his faith--- and I join him, as we both hope in something more than a miracle cure, something that’s beyond death, something grounded in the hope expressed by the apostle Paul, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
In the hope of that eternal glory we can rest, finding within it reason to live in a world bounded on its four corners by death, breathing the oxygen of a hope that survives the misery of our happenstance because it’s a hope in the One who takes us by the hand now and promises to carry us home then.
In that hope, we find reason enough to live for another day.
And rest in peace forever.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com. David is Pastor at Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky.
They were printed next to the name of a cancer patient for whom we prayed. I flinched when I read them. No one is beyond hope--- not even those who appear to be victims in the last stages of cancer.
Cancer is indeed a powerful foe. It’s taken down the tough (Lyle Alzado, Mickey Mantle, Walter Payton), the entertaining (Bette Davis, Milton Berle, Jack Benny), the rugged (Yul Brenner, U.S. Grant, John Wayne), and the brilliant (James Baldwin, Steve Jobs, Enrico Fermi), just to mention a few. There is no vaccination against cancer, and no society is cancer free. You have a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor with cancer.
Maybe you have cancer.
According to Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, because we are living longer, cancer has more time to strike us, making it a “new normal,” in our lives. In advanced nations, cancer attacks two to three people during their lifetime. But we are making progress in the fight against cancer. Although the incidence of cancer is rising, cancer mortality is actually going down, says Dr. Mukherjee.
And so we hope.
Yet even as we hope in advances of medical technology and the benefits of healthier lifestyles, we know our time is limited. As cancer victim Steve Jobs said in his commencement address at Stanford University shortly after his cancer diagnosis in 2003: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one had escaped it.”
I’m not sure what Jobs’s concept of the afterlife was. A convert to Zen Buddhism, perhaps his hope was in an enlightened state of rebirth, or a dissolving into a blissful nothingness. Or maybe Zen provided the underpinnings for a more secular form of hope with no need of dogma or revelation, where this world is all there is and all we need. Christianity Today editor Andy Crouch’s observation in The Wall Street Journal seems quite correct: “Mr. Jobs’s Apple is a religion of hope in a hopeless world---hope that your mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be discarded like a 2001 iPod.” As Crouch notes, for many in this secular age, that’s enough.
But for others it’s not.
For the one whose future was mistakenly labeled, “no hope,” it wasn’t. He clings to hope---a hope that he, still in the prime of young adulthood, will by God’s mercy overcome cancer and avoid death, at least for a while, at least until he can leave the hospital where he has been confined for more months than he cares to count, imprisoned in a bed where he hears of life on the outside, of days other people enjoy, days of sunshine and fun, of breathtaking sunrises and glowing sunsets, of weddings and parties with friends, days stolen from him by cancer’s curse; days forever gone, dissolved by the slow drip of chemotherapy.
As I conclude my prayer, he signs the cross---a motion of his faith--- and I join him, as we both hope in something more than a miracle cure, something that’s beyond death, something grounded in the hope expressed by the apostle Paul, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
In the hope of that eternal glory we can rest, finding within it reason to live in a world bounded on its four corners by death, breathing the oxygen of a hope that survives the misery of our happenstance because it’s a hope in the One who takes us by the hand now and promises to carry us home then.
In that hope, we find reason enough to live for another day.
And rest in peace forever.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, davidbwhitlock.com. David is Pastor at Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky.
Your Cheatin' Heart Will Tell on You
So begins the first line of Hank Williams Sr.’s classic hit, “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” And if your own cheatin’ heart won’t tell on you, someone else’s cheatin’ heart will. Or someone will connect the dots that place your cheatin’ heart in the crosshairs. It’s almost certain.
Almost.
It’s that lure of the “almost,” the bet on the card that says, “You’re an exception; you can get by with it,” that entices the moral gambler to roll the dice.
But the odds are not in lady luck’s favor.
Just ask the recently arrested former and current students at the prestigious Great Neck North High School (ranked among the top 100 best high schools in the U.S., the school boasts of Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and Olympic figure skating champion Sarah Hughes among its graduates) in Long Island, New York.
These students allegedly paid Sam Eshaghoff, 19, a Great Neck North graduate and now a student at Emory University, between $1,500 and $2,500, to take the SAT exam for them. He did so with great success.
But faculty at the high school had heard rumors that some students had paid another student to take the SAT for them. Then administrators noticed large discrepancies between these six students’ academic performance and their SAT scores.
I could almost hear ol’ Hank Sr., crooning, “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you,” when I saw the handcuffed Eshaghoff and the other students covering their heads with their jackets as they were being led to the police station.
A cheatin’ heart lurks within each of us, and given the right circumstances, it emerges, muddling our decisions, dragging us into the murky moral mire that begins comfortably enough with dismissing caution, gradually descends into covering mistakes, and ends with perfuming the stench of wrong doing. And stench inevitably draws flies, flies that are attracted to a decaying, cheating heart, a cheating heart that will tell on you, sooner or later.
Cheating rivets our culture to the degree that you may feel cheated if you don’t cheat: If everybody in your reference group is doing it, you may feel left behind if you don’t, penalized for playing by the rules. “If the opportunity is there, take it,” our culture tells us, “regardless of whether it’s right or wrong or who gets hurt.” One of the students at Great Neck North High School said in a report on the NBC Today Show, “If they (the accused students) had the money on hand, and I guess they can, if they have the opportunity, it’s just not that surprising.”
I feel for those students who buckled under the pressure to achieve. They wanted something good, but went about it in the wrong way. They were trying desperately to be something they weren’t by claiming something they did not deserve.
We’ve all been there, more or less, in greater or lesser degrees. David Callahan maintains, in his book, The Cheating Culture, that more Americans are cheating and feeling less guilty about it. And Dan Ariely’s research in behavioral economics reveals that when people in our reference group cheat, we are more likely to cheat. Both truths are causes for concern: Those youth maturing in a culture where cheating is increasingly becoming the acceptable norm will be the ones leading change--- for good or bad--- in American politics and government, as if it could get worse than it already is.
Cheating didn’t begin with the United States; it’s as old as the oldest story in the Hebrew Bible. Eve bought the lie that God was cheating her of pleasure, and in seeking an end run to gratification, she tried cheating God of forbidden fruit, a choice that Adam seconded, landing them both outside the garden of gardens, hiding their shame with fig leaves.
We would do well to remember those original cheaters whenever we are tempted to cut corners in wrong ways. For if you’ve been there and done that (and bought the T-shirt with a capital “C” emblazoned on it), or if only you’ve seen the harm it does to others---you surely don’t want a cheatin’ heart to tell on you.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Almost.
It’s that lure of the “almost,” the bet on the card that says, “You’re an exception; you can get by with it,” that entices the moral gambler to roll the dice.
But the odds are not in lady luck’s favor.
Just ask the recently arrested former and current students at the prestigious Great Neck North High School (ranked among the top 100 best high schools in the U.S., the school boasts of Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and Olympic figure skating champion Sarah Hughes among its graduates) in Long Island, New York.
These students allegedly paid Sam Eshaghoff, 19, a Great Neck North graduate and now a student at Emory University, between $1,500 and $2,500, to take the SAT exam for them. He did so with great success.
But faculty at the high school had heard rumors that some students had paid another student to take the SAT for them. Then administrators noticed large discrepancies between these six students’ academic performance and their SAT scores.
I could almost hear ol’ Hank Sr., crooning, “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you,” when I saw the handcuffed Eshaghoff and the other students covering their heads with their jackets as they were being led to the police station.
A cheatin’ heart lurks within each of us, and given the right circumstances, it emerges, muddling our decisions, dragging us into the murky moral mire that begins comfortably enough with dismissing caution, gradually descends into covering mistakes, and ends with perfuming the stench of wrong doing. And stench inevitably draws flies, flies that are attracted to a decaying, cheating heart, a cheating heart that will tell on you, sooner or later.
Cheating rivets our culture to the degree that you may feel cheated if you don’t cheat: If everybody in your reference group is doing it, you may feel left behind if you don’t, penalized for playing by the rules. “If the opportunity is there, take it,” our culture tells us, “regardless of whether it’s right or wrong or who gets hurt.” One of the students at Great Neck North High School said in a report on the NBC Today Show, “If they (the accused students) had the money on hand, and I guess they can, if they have the opportunity, it’s just not that surprising.”
I feel for those students who buckled under the pressure to achieve. They wanted something good, but went about it in the wrong way. They were trying desperately to be something they weren’t by claiming something they did not deserve.
We’ve all been there, more or less, in greater or lesser degrees. David Callahan maintains, in his book, The Cheating Culture, that more Americans are cheating and feeling less guilty about it. And Dan Ariely’s research in behavioral economics reveals that when people in our reference group cheat, we are more likely to cheat. Both truths are causes for concern: Those youth maturing in a culture where cheating is increasingly becoming the acceptable norm will be the ones leading change--- for good or bad--- in American politics and government, as if it could get worse than it already is.
Cheating didn’t begin with the United States; it’s as old as the oldest story in the Hebrew Bible. Eve bought the lie that God was cheating her of pleasure, and in seeking an end run to gratification, she tried cheating God of forbidden fruit, a choice that Adam seconded, landing them both outside the garden of gardens, hiding their shame with fig leaves.
We would do well to remember those original cheaters whenever we are tempted to cut corners in wrong ways. For if you’ve been there and done that (and bought the T-shirt with a capital “C” emblazoned on it), or if only you’ve seen the harm it does to others---you surely don’t want a cheatin’ heart to tell on you.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Till Alzheimer's Do Us Part?
When I first heard Reverend Pat Robertson’s comment, I thought of Ronald Reagan’s response to incumbent President Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate, “There you go again.”
“There you go again, Pat,” I thought. But Robertson wasn’t in a debate, he was responding to a caller on his television program, “The 700 Club.” This is not the first time Robertson’s statements have placed him in the center of controversy. In 2010 he blamed the earthquake in Haiti on a pact he said the Haitians made with the Devil 200 years ago.
This time he was counseling a man wanting to know how to advise a friend whose wife was so deep into dementia that she no longer recognized him. The man’s wife as he once knew her was gone, and now he was seeing another woman.
"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again -- but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said.
But what about the vow, “til death do us part?”
Alzheimer’s is a “kind of death,” a “walking death,” according to him.
Robertson was overlooking the fact that while in many cases caregivers do form relationships with others, few seek to divorce their spouse, and in fact, Alzheimer’s frequently brings families closer together. Robertson was obviously thinking of the caregiver more than the patient.
Neurologist James E. Galvin, director of the dementia clinic of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, said in an interview with the New York Times that victims of this horrible disease still tend to recognize those people who have been closest to them. And Susan Galeas, CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association of Southern California, observes that even as victims of the disease progress toward the end stage of the illness, they are still individuals nonetheless, benefitting from loving relationships, enjoying a rich history filled with personal experiences.
Robertson was clearly struggling with the issue. He advised his listener, “Get some ethicist besides me to give you the answer, because I recognize the dilemma, and the last thing I would do is condemn you for taking that kind of action.”
Robertson’s comments, as misapplied as they may be, should push us to think about this issue. Rather than simply pulling the, “Thou shall not divorce card,” and condemning everyone taking that route, perhaps we would do better to recall Jesus’ “new commandment,” the one about loving each other, the one that says “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other” (John 13:34), and ask ourselves how love is expressed for both care givers and patients in the grip of this grim disease.
More of us will be facing this unfortunate dilemma. An estimated 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and with the number of baby boomers soon entering their senior years, that figure is bound to increase. Nearly half the people over the age of 85 already have Alzheimer’s. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It has no cause, no treatment, and no cure.
My conversations with my Alzheimer’s friend move in the same circular fashion: Her mind malfunctions like a record hopelessly getting stuck in the same place, returning to the same beginning. “Now who are you?” she asks for the third time in 10 minutes. I remind her again; she answers the same: “Oh, yes, I know who you are.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she remembers her deceased husband’s love. And then having remembered him, she forgets him.
“How old am I?” When I remind her, she frowns as she reflects, “I just didn’t know people lived that long. I can’t figure out why God let me live this long, too long.”
“The church, your church still loves you,” I say, trying to reassure her of her place with our community.
In an instant, her frown disappears; a smile spreads across her face as her eyes brighten. “The church,” she says as if an old friend has walked into the room, “the church, I’ve always loved the church, I still love the church.”
Instead of thinking of reasons to go on without them, maybe we should look for reasons to go on with them, for when all the memories have slipped away, the love of relationships remains, and even when the present is only a fuzzy haze, they may still feel love, a love as familiar as a well worn glove, often tenderly received even when they can’t remember the face or the hands that give it.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com, or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
“There you go again, Pat,” I thought. But Robertson wasn’t in a debate, he was responding to a caller on his television program, “The 700 Club.” This is not the first time Robertson’s statements have placed him in the center of controversy. In 2010 he blamed the earthquake in Haiti on a pact he said the Haitians made with the Devil 200 years ago.
This time he was counseling a man wanting to know how to advise a friend whose wife was so deep into dementia that she no longer recognized him. The man’s wife as he once knew her was gone, and now he was seeing another woman.
"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again -- but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said.
But what about the vow, “til death do us part?”
Alzheimer’s is a “kind of death,” a “walking death,” according to him.
Robertson was overlooking the fact that while in many cases caregivers do form relationships with others, few seek to divorce their spouse, and in fact, Alzheimer’s frequently brings families closer together. Robertson was obviously thinking of the caregiver more than the patient.
Neurologist James E. Galvin, director of the dementia clinic of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, said in an interview with the New York Times that victims of this horrible disease still tend to recognize those people who have been closest to them. And Susan Galeas, CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association of Southern California, observes that even as victims of the disease progress toward the end stage of the illness, they are still individuals nonetheless, benefitting from loving relationships, enjoying a rich history filled with personal experiences.
Robertson was clearly struggling with the issue. He advised his listener, “Get some ethicist besides me to give you the answer, because I recognize the dilemma, and the last thing I would do is condemn you for taking that kind of action.”
Robertson’s comments, as misapplied as they may be, should push us to think about this issue. Rather than simply pulling the, “Thou shall not divorce card,” and condemning everyone taking that route, perhaps we would do better to recall Jesus’ “new commandment,” the one about loving each other, the one that says “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other” (John 13:34), and ask ourselves how love is expressed for both care givers and patients in the grip of this grim disease.
More of us will be facing this unfortunate dilemma. An estimated 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and with the number of baby boomers soon entering their senior years, that figure is bound to increase. Nearly half the people over the age of 85 already have Alzheimer’s. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It has no cause, no treatment, and no cure.
My conversations with my Alzheimer’s friend move in the same circular fashion: Her mind malfunctions like a record hopelessly getting stuck in the same place, returning to the same beginning. “Now who are you?” she asks for the third time in 10 minutes. I remind her again; she answers the same: “Oh, yes, I know who you are.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she remembers her deceased husband’s love. And then having remembered him, she forgets him.
“How old am I?” When I remind her, she frowns as she reflects, “I just didn’t know people lived that long. I can’t figure out why God let me live this long, too long.”
“The church, your church still loves you,” I say, trying to reassure her of her place with our community.
In an instant, her frown disappears; a smile spreads across her face as her eyes brighten. “The church,” she says as if an old friend has walked into the room, “the church, I’ve always loved the church, I still love the church.”
Instead of thinking of reasons to go on without them, maybe we should look for reasons to go on with them, for when all the memories have slipped away, the love of relationships remains, and even when the present is only a fuzzy haze, they may still feel love, a love as familiar as a well worn glove, often tenderly received even when they can’t remember the face or the hands that give it.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com, or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Be Careful with those words, they could be your last
“And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think?”
---Alanis Morissette, from the song, “Ironic”
In a month of bad news---Standard and Poors lowered the U.S.’ sterling credit rating, 30 US service members (including 22 Navy SEALS) were killed in the single deadliest loss for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001, in Somalia 3.2 million people need food and aid immediately, and the stock market plunges again and again and again (Is this the new normal?)---it’s refreshing to hear a good story, one of heroism, courage, and irony.
Yes, irony.
Antonio Diaz Chacon, the 24-year-old man who saved a 6-year-old girl from a kidnapper in Albuquerque, N.M. last week was rightfully honored as a hero. Diaz happened to be in the right place at the right time when he saw the girl abducted. He immediately hopped into his black pickup truck and chased down the kidnapper, pulling the girl from the wrecked van. The irony is that Chacon, a mechanic, wasn’t supposed to be there to save that little girl, for Chacon is an illegal immigrant. He’s married to an American and has been in the country four years. But getting an attorney to acquire the legal documents required for illegals was too difficult, time consuming, and expensive for Chacon.
At the ceremony where Albuquerque Mayor Berry hailed him as a “hero” and proclaimed the day, “Antonio Diaz Chacon Day,” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said Chacon “acted courageously and as an outstanding Samaritan.” But the Governor’s “outstanding Samaritan” acknowledgement is in itself ironic, for Martinez is trying to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants in New Mexico to obtain a driver's license. With no driver’s license, Chacon would quite possibly not have had his job as a mechanic, nor would he have been able legally to use his pickup truck to chase the kidnapper.
But Chacon believes he was supposed to be there that day, and now that it’s happened, he hopes people will see that undocumented immigrants aren’t necessarily criminals. Christina Parker, a spokeswoman for Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said the episode "points to the fact that most undocumented immigrants living in the United States are not criminals. Most are just working to support their families and to take away their driver's license would be detrimental to that."
The constant threat of deportation is also detrimental to familial support and well-being.
What would have happened if Chacon had been living in a state that was cracking down on illegal immigrants, say Arizona, Georgia, or Alabama? Would his possible deportation and subsequent absence from his wife and two daughters have been in the back of his mind when he saw the girl thrown into the van? Would he have paused a split second before deciding what to do? Would his wife have hesitated before dialing 911? And would that moment of ambivalence have allowed the kidnapper time to get away?
I hope not; I think Chacon would have done the right thing anyway. But the very fact that in one state Chacon could be a hero one day, while in another he could perform the same act of heroism and be torn from his family the next day, points to the ironies in our immigration system.
The solution towards a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants lies somewhere in that complicated middle ground between amnesty for all unauthorized documented immigrants and criminal prosecution and deportation of them.
Finding that path is not easy, and in light of Washington’s apparent inability to resolve complex issues, perhaps churches could shine a light for them and others. The Scriptures do have something to say about how we should treat the 15 million undocumented immigrants: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way” (Exodus 22:21). And when Jesus warned, “When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40), wouldn’t “the least of these” include undocumented immigrants?
The moral majority of Jesus’ day may not have appreciated his inclusion of the despised Samaritan in his story of the Good Samaritan. In their eyes, he wasn’t supposed to be there.
But Jesus put him in the story anyway to teach us a lesson about doing what is right, compassionate, and good to anyone in need, regardless of their legal status.
And there is no irony in that.
(This article was published 8-29-2011)
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
---Alanis Morissette, from the song, “Ironic”
In a month of bad news---Standard and Poors lowered the U.S.’ sterling credit rating, 30 US service members (including 22 Navy SEALS) were killed in the single deadliest loss for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001, in Somalia 3.2 million people need food and aid immediately, and the stock market plunges again and again and again (Is this the new normal?)---it’s refreshing to hear a good story, one of heroism, courage, and irony.
Yes, irony.
Antonio Diaz Chacon, the 24-year-old man who saved a 6-year-old girl from a kidnapper in Albuquerque, N.M. last week was rightfully honored as a hero. Diaz happened to be in the right place at the right time when he saw the girl abducted. He immediately hopped into his black pickup truck and chased down the kidnapper, pulling the girl from the wrecked van. The irony is that Chacon, a mechanic, wasn’t supposed to be there to save that little girl, for Chacon is an illegal immigrant. He’s married to an American and has been in the country four years. But getting an attorney to acquire the legal documents required for illegals was too difficult, time consuming, and expensive for Chacon.
At the ceremony where Albuquerque Mayor Berry hailed him as a “hero” and proclaimed the day, “Antonio Diaz Chacon Day,” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said Chacon “acted courageously and as an outstanding Samaritan.” But the Governor’s “outstanding Samaritan” acknowledgement is in itself ironic, for Martinez is trying to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants in New Mexico to obtain a driver's license. With no driver’s license, Chacon would quite possibly not have had his job as a mechanic, nor would he have been able legally to use his pickup truck to chase the kidnapper.
But Chacon believes he was supposed to be there that day, and now that it’s happened, he hopes people will see that undocumented immigrants aren’t necessarily criminals. Christina Parker, a spokeswoman for Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said the episode "points to the fact that most undocumented immigrants living in the United States are not criminals. Most are just working to support their families and to take away their driver's license would be detrimental to that."
The constant threat of deportation is also detrimental to familial support and well-being.
What would have happened if Chacon had been living in a state that was cracking down on illegal immigrants, say Arizona, Georgia, or Alabama? Would his possible deportation and subsequent absence from his wife and two daughters have been in the back of his mind when he saw the girl thrown into the van? Would he have paused a split second before deciding what to do? Would his wife have hesitated before dialing 911? And would that moment of ambivalence have allowed the kidnapper time to get away?
I hope not; I think Chacon would have done the right thing anyway. But the very fact that in one state Chacon could be a hero one day, while in another he could perform the same act of heroism and be torn from his family the next day, points to the ironies in our immigration system.
The solution towards a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants lies somewhere in that complicated middle ground between amnesty for all unauthorized documented immigrants and criminal prosecution and deportation of them.
Finding that path is not easy, and in light of Washington’s apparent inability to resolve complex issues, perhaps churches could shine a light for them and others. The Scriptures do have something to say about how we should treat the 15 million undocumented immigrants: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way” (Exodus 22:21). And when Jesus warned, “When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40), wouldn’t “the least of these” include undocumented immigrants?
The moral majority of Jesus’ day may not have appreciated his inclusion of the despised Samaritan in his story of the Good Samaritan. In their eyes, he wasn’t supposed to be there.
But Jesus put him in the story anyway to teach us a lesson about doing what is right, compassionate, and good to anyone in need, regardless of their legal status.
And there is no irony in that.
(This article was published 8-29-2011)
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Hero Status of Illgeal Immigrants Raises Questions
“And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think?”
---Alanis Morissette, from the song, “Ironic”
In a month of bad news---Standard and Poors lowered the U.S.’ sterling credit rating, 30 US service members (including 22 Navy SEALS) were killed in the single deadliest loss for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001, in Somalia 3.2 million people need food and aid immediately, and the stock market plunges again and again and again (Is this the new normal?)---it’s refreshing to hear a good story, one of heroism, courage, and irony.
Yes, irony.
Antonio Diaz Chacon, the 24-year-old man who saved a 6-year-old girl from a kidnapper in Albuquerque, N.M. last week was rightfully honored as a hero. Diaz happened to be in the right place at the right time when he saw the girl abducted. He immediately hopped into his black pickup truck and chased down the kidnapper, pulling the girl from the wrecked van. The irony is that Chacon, a mechanic, wasn’t supposed to be there to save that little girl, for Chacon is an illegal immigrant. He’s married to an American and has been in the country four years. But getting an attorney to acquire the legal documents required for illegals was too difficult, time consuming, and expensive for Chacon.
At the ceremony where Albuquerque Mayor Berry hailed him as a “hero” and proclaimed the day, “Antonio Diaz Chacon Day,” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said Chacon “acted courageously and as an outstanding Samaritan.” But the Governor’s “outstanding Samaritan” acknowledgement is in itself ironic, for Martinez is trying to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants in New Mexico to obtain a driver's license. With no driver’s license, Chacon would quite possibly not have had his job as a mechanic, nor would he have been able legally to use his pickup truck to chase the kidnapper.
But Chacon believes he was supposed to be there that day, and now that it’s happened, he hopes people will see that undocumented immigrants aren’t necessarily criminals. Christina Parker, a spokeswoman for Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said the episode "points to the fact that most undocumented immigrants living in the United States are not criminals. Most are just working to support their families and to take away their driver's license would be detrimental to that."
The constant threat of deportation is also detrimental to familial support and well-being.
What would have happened if Chacon had been living in a state that was cracking down on illegal immigrants, say Arizona, Georgia, or Alabama? Would his possible deportation and subsequent absence from his wife and two daughters have been in the back of his mind when he saw the girl thrown into the van? Would he have paused a split second before deciding what to do? Would his wife have hesitated before dialing 911? And would that moment of ambivalence have allowed the kidnapper time to get away?
I hope not; I think Chacon would have done the right thing anyway. But the very fact that in one state Chacon could be a hero one day, while in another he could perform the same act of heroism and be torn from his family the next day, points to the ironies in our immigration system.
The solution towards a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants lies somewhere in that complicated middle ground between amnesty for all unauthorized documented immigrants and criminal prosecution and deportation of them.
Finding that path is not easy, and in light of Washington’s apparent inability to resolve complex issues, perhaps churches could shine a light for them and others. The Scriptures do have something to say about how we should treat the 15 million undocumented immigrants: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way” (Exodus 22:21). And when Jesus warned, “When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40), wouldn’t “the least of these” include undocumented immigrants?
The moral majority of Jesus’ day may not have appreciated his inclusion of the despised Samaritan in his story of the Good Samaritan. In their eyes, he wasn’t supposed to be there.
But Jesus put him in the story anyway to teach us a lesson about doing what is right, compassionate, and good to anyone in need, regardless of their legal status.
And there is no irony in that.
(This article was publised 8-22-2011
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
---Alanis Morissette, from the song, “Ironic”
In a month of bad news---Standard and Poors lowered the U.S.’ sterling credit rating, 30 US service members (including 22 Navy SEALS) were killed in the single deadliest loss for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001, in Somalia 3.2 million people need food and aid immediately, and the stock market plunges again and again and again (Is this the new normal?)---it’s refreshing to hear a good story, one of heroism, courage, and irony.
Yes, irony.
Antonio Diaz Chacon, the 24-year-old man who saved a 6-year-old girl from a kidnapper in Albuquerque, N.M. last week was rightfully honored as a hero. Diaz happened to be in the right place at the right time when he saw the girl abducted. He immediately hopped into his black pickup truck and chased down the kidnapper, pulling the girl from the wrecked van. The irony is that Chacon, a mechanic, wasn’t supposed to be there to save that little girl, for Chacon is an illegal immigrant. He’s married to an American and has been in the country four years. But getting an attorney to acquire the legal documents required for illegals was too difficult, time consuming, and expensive for Chacon.
At the ceremony where Albuquerque Mayor Berry hailed him as a “hero” and proclaimed the day, “Antonio Diaz Chacon Day,” New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said Chacon “acted courageously and as an outstanding Samaritan.” But the Governor’s “outstanding Samaritan” acknowledgement is in itself ironic, for Martinez is trying to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants in New Mexico to obtain a driver's license. With no driver’s license, Chacon would quite possibly not have had his job as a mechanic, nor would he have been able legally to use his pickup truck to chase the kidnapper.
But Chacon believes he was supposed to be there that day, and now that it’s happened, he hopes people will see that undocumented immigrants aren’t necessarily criminals. Christina Parker, a spokeswoman for Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, said the episode "points to the fact that most undocumented immigrants living in the United States are not criminals. Most are just working to support their families and to take away their driver's license would be detrimental to that."
The constant threat of deportation is also detrimental to familial support and well-being.
What would have happened if Chacon had been living in a state that was cracking down on illegal immigrants, say Arizona, Georgia, or Alabama? Would his possible deportation and subsequent absence from his wife and two daughters have been in the back of his mind when he saw the girl thrown into the van? Would he have paused a split second before deciding what to do? Would his wife have hesitated before dialing 911? And would that moment of ambivalence have allowed the kidnapper time to get away?
I hope not; I think Chacon would have done the right thing anyway. But the very fact that in one state Chacon could be a hero one day, while in another he could perform the same act of heroism and be torn from his family the next day, points to the ironies in our immigration system.
The solution towards a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants lies somewhere in that complicated middle ground between amnesty for all unauthorized documented immigrants and criminal prosecution and deportation of them.
Finding that path is not easy, and in light of Washington’s apparent inability to resolve complex issues, perhaps churches could shine a light for them and others. The Scriptures do have something to say about how we should treat the 15 million undocumented immigrants: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way” (Exodus 22:21). And when Jesus warned, “When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40), wouldn’t “the least of these” include undocumented immigrants?
The moral majority of Jesus’ day may not have appreciated his inclusion of the despised Samaritan in his story of the Good Samaritan. In their eyes, he wasn’t supposed to be there.
But Jesus put him in the story anyway to teach us a lesson about doing what is right, compassionate, and good to anyone in need, regardless of their legal status.
And there is no irony in that.
(This article was publised 8-22-2011
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
In search of Grandma's misplaced soul
The words surprised me, especially since they came from Grandma.
“She says she can’t find her soul, and she’s ready for God to take her home,” my mother-in-law told me on the phone, her voice cracking as she spoke through her tears, trying her best to quote Grandma. By “home” Grandma meant heaven. That made sense. Grandma had not been feeling well for days, and after all, she is one month shy of being 102 years old.
But her words, “I can’t find my soul,” puzzled me. She didn’t say she didn’t know where she was going or that she was clueless about who would take her there. No, she was ready for God to take her home to heaven.
Where is the soul, anyway, and why couldn’t Grandma find hers?
For skeptics like Michael Shermer the soul is located in the patterns of information coded in our DNA and neural memories. In his book, The Soul of Science, he states that “it appears that when we die our pattern is lost.” The soul is the mind and dies when the brain ceases to function: “Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.”
But British scientist Dr. Sam Parnia, in studying heart attack patients, says he is finding evidence that suggests consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead. Parnia is even conducting research to isolate where in the brain such consciousness is located. Would that be where the soul is?
Although he is by no means a scientist, I wonder if philosophy professor and literary giant, William H. Gass, would agree with Shermer and the scientific skeptics. With his typical piercing intellect, Gass states in his wonderful book of essays, Finding a Form, “I am going to insist that what we sometimes call the soul is simply the immediate source of any speech---the larynx of the logos--- a world without words would be a soulless one…”
Grandma may not have known where her soul was, but she knew she had one and that it lives forever; she may have been momentarily confused about its place--- was it somewhere in her neural memories? between heaven and earth? deep within herself, in whatever gives rise to words, i.e. thought itself?---but she was certain God would take her soul home.
Maybe Grandma was going through something like what St. John of the Cross termed, La noche oscura del alma, “the dark night of the soul,” a painful, lonely time of hardship and suffering when God often seems far away and praying is difficult. When I called to pray for Grandma, she didn’t feel like praying, (unusual for her) but was grateful that I would pray nonetheless.
In the midst of pain and suffering it’s easy to lose our place, forgetting our souls, interpreting the darkness of the night as the obliteration of light, the fogginess of the moment as the suspension of forever.
But God is there even when we have lost our footing and feel like we are hopelessly slipping into an endless quicksand of doubt. St. John in his gospel quotes Jesus as saying that no one or anything can take the soul of a believer because God’s children are safe and secure in his hands: “No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else” (John 10:28-29).
Grandma knew God was there, really, all along, even when she couldn’t find her soul.
When my sister-in-law, Lisa, called her and asked about what Grandma had said, Lisa tried to help her. “Did you mean the nursery rhyme you’ve prayed before, 'Now I lay me down to sleep?’”
“Oh, yes, that’s it, honey,” Grandma said. And then she repeated the prayer with Lisa, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
If Grandma couldn’t remember for the moment, at least she knew where she could find her soul: safe in the hands of God who will keep it and not take it until he is ready for her.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, Davidbwhitlock.com
.
“She says she can’t find her soul, and she’s ready for God to take her home,” my mother-in-law told me on the phone, her voice cracking as she spoke through her tears, trying her best to quote Grandma. By “home” Grandma meant heaven. That made sense. Grandma had not been feeling well for days, and after all, she is one month shy of being 102 years old.
But her words, “I can’t find my soul,” puzzled me. She didn’t say she didn’t know where she was going or that she was clueless about who would take her there. No, she was ready for God to take her home to heaven.
Where is the soul, anyway, and why couldn’t Grandma find hers?
For skeptics like Michael Shermer the soul is located in the patterns of information coded in our DNA and neural memories. In his book, The Soul of Science, he states that “it appears that when we die our pattern is lost.” The soul is the mind and dies when the brain ceases to function: “Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.”
But British scientist Dr. Sam Parnia, in studying heart attack patients, says he is finding evidence that suggests consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead. Parnia is even conducting research to isolate where in the brain such consciousness is located. Would that be where the soul is?
Although he is by no means a scientist, I wonder if philosophy professor and literary giant, William H. Gass, would agree with Shermer and the scientific skeptics. With his typical piercing intellect, Gass states in his wonderful book of essays, Finding a Form, “I am going to insist that what we sometimes call the soul is simply the immediate source of any speech---the larynx of the logos--- a world without words would be a soulless one…”
Grandma may not have known where her soul was, but she knew she had one and that it lives forever; she may have been momentarily confused about its place--- was it somewhere in her neural memories? between heaven and earth? deep within herself, in whatever gives rise to words, i.e. thought itself?---but she was certain God would take her soul home.
Maybe Grandma was going through something like what St. John of the Cross termed, La noche oscura del alma, “the dark night of the soul,” a painful, lonely time of hardship and suffering when God often seems far away and praying is difficult. When I called to pray for Grandma, she didn’t feel like praying, (unusual for her) but was grateful that I would pray nonetheless.
In the midst of pain and suffering it’s easy to lose our place, forgetting our souls, interpreting the darkness of the night as the obliteration of light, the fogginess of the moment as the suspension of forever.
But God is there even when we have lost our footing and feel like we are hopelessly slipping into an endless quicksand of doubt. St. John in his gospel quotes Jesus as saying that no one or anything can take the soul of a believer because God’s children are safe and secure in his hands: “No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else” (John 10:28-29).
Grandma knew God was there, really, all along, even when she couldn’t find her soul.
When my sister-in-law, Lisa, called her and asked about what Grandma had said, Lisa tried to help her. “Did you mean the nursery rhyme you’ve prayed before, 'Now I lay me down to sleep?’”
“Oh, yes, that’s it, honey,” Grandma said. And then she repeated the prayer with Lisa, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
If Grandma couldn’t remember for the moment, at least she knew where she could find her soul: safe in the hands of God who will keep it and not take it until he is ready for her.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, Davidbwhitlock.com
.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Midnight Wherever You Are
It’s been quite a summer for movies: I was hijacked to Bangkok by Hangover II, thankful for the bad bosses I haven’t had in Horrible Bosses, reminded that women can be just as flat-out stupid-crazy as men in Bridesmaids, and glad I’m not anyone but me in The Changeup.
But my favorite film of the summer is one that catapulted me back in time to another era, a golden age. Is there any such thing as a golden age, an age marked by prosperity, happiness, creativity, and achievement? Most of us have a personal golden age---perhaps it’s an earlier day in our life or another age in history altogether. What if you could actually go back to that time in your life or that period in history?
That question is explored in Woody’s Allen’s wistfully charming and at times hilarious, Midnight in Paris. Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a disenchanted Hollywood screen writer who visits Paris with his materialistic fiancé and her boorish parents. No one appreciates Gil’s enchantment with Paris or his desire to write a significant novel. “I'm having trouble because I'm a Hollywood hack who never gave real literature a shot,” he admits.
Mostly to escape his company, Gil wanders the streets of his beloved Paris. And that’s when the magic begins. At midnight he tumbles back in time to the Paris of the 1920s, escaping to his personal golden age, the City of Lights that was in that prolific decade of the 1920s the center of the artitistic universe.
Gil encounters a magnificent array of authors and artists and even manages to develop a crush on Pablo Picasso’s mistress. But alas, she mirrors Gil’s own ennui, is dissatisfied with the Paris of the 1920s, and wants to time travel to the Belle Époque, her golden age.
It’s then that it comes to Gil: he realizes the truth in Peter De Vries observation, “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.”
It never was.
It’s in the present moment that we live the life given us. The past is never what we think it was or remember it as. Escaping the present by retreating to the past cheats us of the only time we have: now.
Those who lived in what we think was a golden age rarely recognized it as one. And we ourselves lose today anticipating tomorrow, waiting for a better day, never realizing, as Carly Simon crooned, that “these are the good old days.” The adage, “Wherever you are, be there,” is a good reminder for us to wake up and smell the present moment in all its aroma.
But wait a minute, that’s not entirely right either.
We can gain inspiration for the present moment by returning to the past. That’s one reason why people go to the Holy Land, make Renaissance tours of Europe, and visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. There is something about being there in that place where something significant happened, if only in our minds, that place and time that beckons us back in hopes of returning to the present with some of that past surging through our veins.
That’s what happened to Gil, who like a fish out of water, was suffocating on the shore (recall his name, Gil), of the wrong era, dying a slow death in fear of a meaningless existence, confused about his role in life, doubting his capabilities as a writer and authenticity as a person. It took someone from the past, Gertrude Stein, to remind Gil of his purpose in writing: “The job of the artist is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
But that was only Woody Allen speaking, not Gertrude Stein, right?
Right, but what does it matter? It’s still a magical thinking that returns us to the past, giving us strength and courage for today and hope for tomorrow.
Yes, I believe in that magical thinking: By embracing the past we can return to the present more fit and ready to live the life we were always meant to live now.
And that, in my opinion, is a golden age in any age.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
But my favorite film of the summer is one that catapulted me back in time to another era, a golden age. Is there any such thing as a golden age, an age marked by prosperity, happiness, creativity, and achievement? Most of us have a personal golden age---perhaps it’s an earlier day in our life or another age in history altogether. What if you could actually go back to that time in your life or that period in history?
That question is explored in Woody’s Allen’s wistfully charming and at times hilarious, Midnight in Paris. Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a disenchanted Hollywood screen writer who visits Paris with his materialistic fiancé and her boorish parents. No one appreciates Gil’s enchantment with Paris or his desire to write a significant novel. “I'm having trouble because I'm a Hollywood hack who never gave real literature a shot,” he admits.
Mostly to escape his company, Gil wanders the streets of his beloved Paris. And that’s when the magic begins. At midnight he tumbles back in time to the Paris of the 1920s, escaping to his personal golden age, the City of Lights that was in that prolific decade of the 1920s the center of the artitistic universe.
Gil encounters a magnificent array of authors and artists and even manages to develop a crush on Pablo Picasso’s mistress. But alas, she mirrors Gil’s own ennui, is dissatisfied with the Paris of the 1920s, and wants to time travel to the Belle Époque, her golden age.
It’s then that it comes to Gil: he realizes the truth in Peter De Vries observation, “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.”
It never was.
It’s in the present moment that we live the life given us. The past is never what we think it was or remember it as. Escaping the present by retreating to the past cheats us of the only time we have: now.
Those who lived in what we think was a golden age rarely recognized it as one. And we ourselves lose today anticipating tomorrow, waiting for a better day, never realizing, as Carly Simon crooned, that “these are the good old days.” The adage, “Wherever you are, be there,” is a good reminder for us to wake up and smell the present moment in all its aroma.
But wait a minute, that’s not entirely right either.
We can gain inspiration for the present moment by returning to the past. That’s one reason why people go to the Holy Land, make Renaissance tours of Europe, and visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. There is something about being there in that place where something significant happened, if only in our minds, that place and time that beckons us back in hopes of returning to the present with some of that past surging through our veins.
That’s what happened to Gil, who like a fish out of water, was suffocating on the shore (recall his name, Gil), of the wrong era, dying a slow death in fear of a meaningless existence, confused about his role in life, doubting his capabilities as a writer and authenticity as a person. It took someone from the past, Gertrude Stein, to remind Gil of his purpose in writing: “The job of the artist is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
But that was only Woody Allen speaking, not Gertrude Stein, right?
Right, but what does it matter? It’s still a magical thinking that returns us to the past, giving us strength and courage for today and hope for tomorrow.
Yes, I believe in that magical thinking: By embracing the past we can return to the present more fit and ready to live the life we were always meant to live now.
And that, in my opinion, is a golden age in any age.
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, August 4, 2011
“Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking’ hot wife…”
No, I didn’t say it! (My wife warned me if I prayed that publicly it might be my last prayer.) Those are the words of the Reverend Joe Nelms, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lebanon, Tn., praying at NASCAR’s Federated 300 Nationwide Series Race in Nashville, Saturday last week. Pastor Nelms became an instant star on the internet with comments about his prayer ranging from “the greatest prayer ever,” to “blasphemous.”
It is neither.
As far as I can tell, it’s simply the heartfelt prayer of a man, in this case a pastor and life-long NASCAR fan (this wasn’t the first time he has prayed at a NASCAR event), who didn’t want to pray what he called, “ the cookie-cutter prayer.” Every NASCAR event begins with an invocation, and like most prayers before public events, they are generally quite the same. And most people don’t pay attention.
But Pastor Nelms woke them. The Bible says we should give thanks in all things, and that’s exactly what Nelms did. He thanked the Lord for Toyotas, Dodges, and Fords, for Sunoco racing fuel, for GM performance, and most of all, as he put it, "Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin' hot wife tonight, Lisa…'"
Actually, Nelms adapted the line about his wife from Ricky Bobby’s (Will Farrell) prayer to Baby Jesus in the movie, Talladega Nights. Pastor Nelms was, I believe, trying to communicate something spiritual in a humorous way.
Our church custodian picked up on it, although he may not have realized it at the time. On Monday morning of last week, as I arrived at church, he summarized the latest weekend news (he does this most Mondays), and at the top of his broadcast was the story of Reverend Nelms’ prayer. My instinctive response was, “Well, is she? (Smokin’ hot, that is.)
“I don’t know,” he said, “she must be to him.”
Good answer.
With all the publicity about his prayer, pictures of the Reverend Nelms and his wife were all over the internet. If by “hot” one means a female that resembles Ricky Bobby’s wife, Carley (Leslie Bibb), or Miss Sprint Cup (any Miss Sprint Cup), then Ms. Nelms isn’t there. And some of the snide remarks posted on the internet made that observation. But they’ve missed the deeper lesson.
If she’s “hot” to Pastor Nelms, that’s all that matters. She, or anyone---male or female--- doesn’t have to fit the American cultural image of “hot” to be “hot.”
Security in a long term relationship must have as its basis something more than mere physical attraction. In a recent poll taken by askmen.com and cosmopolitan.com, half of the men surveyed say they would drop their partner if she gained weight. Twenty percent of the women said the same. Maybe we’ve let the Miss Sprint Cup and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader image of “hot” determine what’s acceptable and what’s not for us. But sooner or later we will be disappointed.
The important thing is to love and appreciate the one you are with, extending unconditional acceptance in relationships.
It works both ways---for male and female---this expression of gratitude for the one you are with. And there are benefits to being grateful; sometimes it ricochets back in unexpected ways.
When things get a little tense on my home front, as they invariably do in most normal relationships, when an annoying habit of mine (Did I just admit to having those?) grates on my wife’s last nerve, when I see those beautiful eyes start to narrow (signaling anger), her right foot begin tapping (a sign of frustration), her pretty face turning away from me (a sure indication of exasperation, warning me of imminent danger), I know it’s time for the NASCAR PRAYER.
I look heavenward, stretch my arms wide, and utter those words, “Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife.”
Her frown instantly transforms into that familiar cute grin as she coyly turns her face back towards me, rolls her eyes and exclaims, “Oh, you!”
Ahh, God has once again intervened. And lo! I am forgiven.
And then my prayer she doesn’t hear, “Lord, I really do thank you for my smokin’ hot wife…
And for your mercy!”
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
It is neither.
As far as I can tell, it’s simply the heartfelt prayer of a man, in this case a pastor and life-long NASCAR fan (this wasn’t the first time he has prayed at a NASCAR event), who didn’t want to pray what he called, “ the cookie-cutter prayer.” Every NASCAR event begins with an invocation, and like most prayers before public events, they are generally quite the same. And most people don’t pay attention.
But Pastor Nelms woke them. The Bible says we should give thanks in all things, and that’s exactly what Nelms did. He thanked the Lord for Toyotas, Dodges, and Fords, for Sunoco racing fuel, for GM performance, and most of all, as he put it, "Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin' hot wife tonight, Lisa…'"
Actually, Nelms adapted the line about his wife from Ricky Bobby’s (Will Farrell) prayer to Baby Jesus in the movie, Talladega Nights. Pastor Nelms was, I believe, trying to communicate something spiritual in a humorous way.
Our church custodian picked up on it, although he may not have realized it at the time. On Monday morning of last week, as I arrived at church, he summarized the latest weekend news (he does this most Mondays), and at the top of his broadcast was the story of Reverend Nelms’ prayer. My instinctive response was, “Well, is she? (Smokin’ hot, that is.)
“I don’t know,” he said, “she must be to him.”
Good answer.
With all the publicity about his prayer, pictures of the Reverend Nelms and his wife were all over the internet. If by “hot” one means a female that resembles Ricky Bobby’s wife, Carley (Leslie Bibb), or Miss Sprint Cup (any Miss Sprint Cup), then Ms. Nelms isn’t there. And some of the snide remarks posted on the internet made that observation. But they’ve missed the deeper lesson.
If she’s “hot” to Pastor Nelms, that’s all that matters. She, or anyone---male or female--- doesn’t have to fit the American cultural image of “hot” to be “hot.”
Security in a long term relationship must have as its basis something more than mere physical attraction. In a recent poll taken by askmen.com and cosmopolitan.com, half of the men surveyed say they would drop their partner if she gained weight. Twenty percent of the women said the same. Maybe we’ve let the Miss Sprint Cup and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader image of “hot” determine what’s acceptable and what’s not for us. But sooner or later we will be disappointed.
The important thing is to love and appreciate the one you are with, extending unconditional acceptance in relationships.
It works both ways---for male and female---this expression of gratitude for the one you are with. And there are benefits to being grateful; sometimes it ricochets back in unexpected ways.
When things get a little tense on my home front, as they invariably do in most normal relationships, when an annoying habit of mine (Did I just admit to having those?) grates on my wife’s last nerve, when I see those beautiful eyes start to narrow (signaling anger), her right foot begin tapping (a sign of frustration), her pretty face turning away from me (a sure indication of exasperation, warning me of imminent danger), I know it’s time for the NASCAR PRAYER.
I look heavenward, stretch my arms wide, and utter those words, “Lord, I want to thank you for my smokin’ hot wife.”
Her frown instantly transforms into that familiar cute grin as she coyly turns her face back towards me, rolls her eyes and exclaims, “Oh, you!”
Ahh, God has once again intervened. And lo! I am forgiven.
And then my prayer she doesn’t hear, “Lord, I really do thank you for my smokin’ hot wife…
And for your mercy!”
Contact David B.Whitlock, Ph.D. at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Empty Rooms filled with Memories
“All that had been used to make it a dwelling place, by my folks on back, by Grover and me… all the memories of all the lives that had made it and held it together, all would come apart and be gone as if it never was.”
---from Sold, a short story by Wendell Berry
The rooms were empty by the time I arrived. Except for a few heaps of trash here and there, and some stuff no one wanted, it was finished, done. The auction for the contents of my parents’ house was over. And there I stood with my sister-in-law, Joy, and my brother, Mark, who had witnessed the whole thing. Now they were exhausted, the auction (it was 107 degrees the day of the sale, forcing one of the auctioneers to the emergency room with heat exhaustion), had taken its toll on them, physically and emotionally. Moving slowly, almost painfully ambling from room to room, their eyes darting over every square foot of floor space, they searched as if still expecting to find something beautiful and worthy, something cherished that had been somehow overlooked.
But it was all gone. All that was left was empty rooms.
They looked at me with tears in their eyes like I had arrived at the ER a few moments too late and had just missed the passing of a loved one. Glancing out the back window where I used to chat with Mom on the porch swing about life, and dreams, and why mosquitoes like me so much, my eyes blurred as I choked out the words, “It looks so sad when it’s so empty.”
I then walked through each room alone, just the empty space and me. It was my way of bidding adieu to the home place. And in each room I took a mental picture. I could almost hear my imaginary camera clicking as I paused in each room. I stood in the informal dining area, and click, I captured a picture of our family gathered around the table laden with steak, baked potatoes, fried okra, and corn on the cob. We were singing “happy birthday” to one of us.
I glanced across the room and click, I was taking a Sunday afternoon snooze over there on the couch, the Sunday newspaper draped across my chest.
Then I was in the kitchen and click, there was Dad watching TV while Mom was brewing hot tea.
I walked through the den when click, I got a great shot of all of us at Christmas, exchanging gifts, laughing, and then, click, I got one last picture of my annual reading of the Christmas story. My brother is smiling as I read. He always did.
I tip-toed down the hallway and click, I caught a glimpse of Mom putting on make-up in her bathroom, then click again, and I was in my old room sleeping in my bed, back home for a visit.
In the dining room reserved for special occasions I clicked and saw us at Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and dressing piled high on our plates as we stand around the table, pausing to give thanks.
And so it was, I clicked my way through the house until I arrived back at the place I had left my brother and sister-in-law.
Tears again clouded my eyes, but not for empty rooms; I had just filled them with memories of what they always truly were: spaces where people gathered to be family. And I could carry the moments, the pictures, with me, tucked inside the canyons of my soul, waiting to be explored again for the first time--- a new time.
“I think I may come back tomorrow for one more look,” I said to my brother as we left. But I knew I wouldn’t, for there was no longer a need to return to the old place when I could always draw on the freshness of what it was and is in my heart.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.Davidbwhitlock.com
---from Sold, a short story by Wendell Berry
The rooms were empty by the time I arrived. Except for a few heaps of trash here and there, and some stuff no one wanted, it was finished, done. The auction for the contents of my parents’ house was over. And there I stood with my sister-in-law, Joy, and my brother, Mark, who had witnessed the whole thing. Now they were exhausted, the auction (it was 107 degrees the day of the sale, forcing one of the auctioneers to the emergency room with heat exhaustion), had taken its toll on them, physically and emotionally. Moving slowly, almost painfully ambling from room to room, their eyes darting over every square foot of floor space, they searched as if still expecting to find something beautiful and worthy, something cherished that had been somehow overlooked.
But it was all gone. All that was left was empty rooms.
They looked at me with tears in their eyes like I had arrived at the ER a few moments too late and had just missed the passing of a loved one. Glancing out the back window where I used to chat with Mom on the porch swing about life, and dreams, and why mosquitoes like me so much, my eyes blurred as I choked out the words, “It looks so sad when it’s so empty.”
I then walked through each room alone, just the empty space and me. It was my way of bidding adieu to the home place. And in each room I took a mental picture. I could almost hear my imaginary camera clicking as I paused in each room. I stood in the informal dining area, and click, I captured a picture of our family gathered around the table laden with steak, baked potatoes, fried okra, and corn on the cob. We were singing “happy birthday” to one of us.
I glanced across the room and click, I was taking a Sunday afternoon snooze over there on the couch, the Sunday newspaper draped across my chest.
Then I was in the kitchen and click, there was Dad watching TV while Mom was brewing hot tea.
I walked through the den when click, I got a great shot of all of us at Christmas, exchanging gifts, laughing, and then, click, I got one last picture of my annual reading of the Christmas story. My brother is smiling as I read. He always did.
I tip-toed down the hallway and click, I caught a glimpse of Mom putting on make-up in her bathroom, then click again, and I was in my old room sleeping in my bed, back home for a visit.
In the dining room reserved for special occasions I clicked and saw us at Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and dressing piled high on our plates as we stand around the table, pausing to give thanks.
And so it was, I clicked my way through the house until I arrived back at the place I had left my brother and sister-in-law.
Tears again clouded my eyes, but not for empty rooms; I had just filled them with memories of what they always truly were: spaces where people gathered to be family. And I could carry the moments, the pictures, with me, tucked inside the canyons of my soul, waiting to be explored again for the first time--- a new time.
“I think I may come back tomorrow for one more look,” I said to my brother as we left. But I knew I wouldn’t, for there was no longer a need to return to the old place when I could always draw on the freshness of what it was and is in my heart.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.Davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, July 28, 2011
My stuff is not junk
“You’ll find you’ve brought too much stuff.”
The words were softly spoken---almost as if to himself--- by a retired Pastor, a resident of my parents’ retirement community. He seemed to know by observation and personal experience: we take too much stuff with us.
I take too much stuff with me most everywhere I go, even to the beach. “Let’s see, towels, sun screen, sun glasses, iPod, watch (do I need my watch?), keys, cell phone (do I really need my cell phone?), Kindle (can I even get service for it?), beach shoes---oh my goodness, I can’t carry all this stuff!”
Even when I flew to Oklahoma to help relocate my parents, I took tiny versions of larger stuff in my life: a miniature shaving kit, tooth paste and brush, hair brush, and compact case of contact lens solution. The fact is, I take too much stuff with me.
And that’s our problem: we want to take our stuff with us, even when we retire. And I suppose, even to our grave.
I heard the refrain again and again from other retirement home residents as they watched me breaking down the boxes from my parents’ move: “Downsizing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not looking up, I nodded in agreement.
My parents’ generation matured in a growth economy that tended to equate consumption with success and happiness. Growing up on the heels of a Depression era characterized by lack and want, the accumulation of stuff in times of prosperity equated with security. “Keep that stuff; don’t throw good stuff away; you never know when hard times may hit, and you or someone else may need it again.”
I have a friend whose grandmother built a large room and basement, almost the size of the original house. Why? So she could keep all her extra stuff in it. Then she moved and built a larger house that kept all her stuff. Now, her son has another house to keep her stuff, plus all of his stuff. What happens when they die? Call the auctioneer.
During breakfast at the retirement facility, I asked one dear couple what had been the hardest thing about moving. “Leaving our home--- our home of so many years, and departing with most all we had in it.”
My heart ached for her as I listened, sitting next to Dad, who was on his first day away from his home of 58 years, experiencing the same pain that lady expressed.
And I wanted to kick myself for asking the question.
It can be a disheartening situation. Dr.David J. Ekerdt, who directs the gerontology center at the University of Kansas, has extensively researched the matter of senior adults having to downsize. Based on his interviews with social workers, geriatricians, retirement community administrators and family members, Dr. Ekerdt has concluded that the sheer volume of objects in a typical household--- including the tremendous physical and mental stress involved in sorting out what’s essential and the psychological effects of parting with what’s not — can lead to what he calls a “paralysis that keeps seniors in place, even when the place isn’t the best place.” In other words, possessions become an obstacle that often keeps senior adults from better managing their health and well-being.
My brothers and I could no longer wait for Mom and Dad to direct us in what to keep and what Dr. Ekerdt calls “household disbandment,” that is, disposing of possessions. The house had sold, the moving van would soon be in the driveway, and the retirement facility would not wait forever.
It was painful.
We ferreted through photograph albums, newspaper clippings, clothes and more clothes---and more stuff, behind every nook and cranny, more, more, more.
And finally, exhausted, we fell back. But we had it on the truck.
I arrived back home with a mission: get rid of my extra stuff. I plowed through the overloaded mail box in my office, throwing away old journals, magazine subscriptions, newspapers, and the junk mail that was cluttering my life. I sighed with relief at my little accomplishment.
And then I arrived home. “The packages came in today,” Lori informed me. The packages included the boxes of stuff I couldn’t bear to see thrown away from Mom and Dad’s house. “It was a ‘package deal,’” I quipped, that included the pictures of my first haircut, my brother Mark throwing me the football, my brother Lowell in his 1963 Altus High School letter jacket, and my brother Dougie and me playing together.”
No, that’s not junk. Junk belongs to someone else.
So, I’m keeping my stuff…
At least for now…
Or until our kids can go through it…
Someday…
Somehow…
And decide what stuff they want.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
The words were softly spoken---almost as if to himself--- by a retired Pastor, a resident of my parents’ retirement community. He seemed to know by observation and personal experience: we take too much stuff with us.
I take too much stuff with me most everywhere I go, even to the beach. “Let’s see, towels, sun screen, sun glasses, iPod, watch (do I need my watch?), keys, cell phone (do I really need my cell phone?), Kindle (can I even get service for it?), beach shoes---oh my goodness, I can’t carry all this stuff!”
Even when I flew to Oklahoma to help relocate my parents, I took tiny versions of larger stuff in my life: a miniature shaving kit, tooth paste and brush, hair brush, and compact case of contact lens solution. The fact is, I take too much stuff with me.
And that’s our problem: we want to take our stuff with us, even when we retire. And I suppose, even to our grave.
I heard the refrain again and again from other retirement home residents as they watched me breaking down the boxes from my parents’ move: “Downsizing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not looking up, I nodded in agreement.
My parents’ generation matured in a growth economy that tended to equate consumption with success and happiness. Growing up on the heels of a Depression era characterized by lack and want, the accumulation of stuff in times of prosperity equated with security. “Keep that stuff; don’t throw good stuff away; you never know when hard times may hit, and you or someone else may need it again.”
I have a friend whose grandmother built a large room and basement, almost the size of the original house. Why? So she could keep all her extra stuff in it. Then she moved and built a larger house that kept all her stuff. Now, her son has another house to keep her stuff, plus all of his stuff. What happens when they die? Call the auctioneer.
During breakfast at the retirement facility, I asked one dear couple what had been the hardest thing about moving. “Leaving our home--- our home of so many years, and departing with most all we had in it.”
My heart ached for her as I listened, sitting next to Dad, who was on his first day away from his home of 58 years, experiencing the same pain that lady expressed.
And I wanted to kick myself for asking the question.
It can be a disheartening situation. Dr.David J. Ekerdt, who directs the gerontology center at the University of Kansas, has extensively researched the matter of senior adults having to downsize. Based on his interviews with social workers, geriatricians, retirement community administrators and family members, Dr. Ekerdt has concluded that the sheer volume of objects in a typical household--- including the tremendous physical and mental stress involved in sorting out what’s essential and the psychological effects of parting with what’s not — can lead to what he calls a “paralysis that keeps seniors in place, even when the place isn’t the best place.” In other words, possessions become an obstacle that often keeps senior adults from better managing their health and well-being.
My brothers and I could no longer wait for Mom and Dad to direct us in what to keep and what Dr. Ekerdt calls “household disbandment,” that is, disposing of possessions. The house had sold, the moving van would soon be in the driveway, and the retirement facility would not wait forever.
It was painful.
We ferreted through photograph albums, newspaper clippings, clothes and more clothes---and more stuff, behind every nook and cranny, more, more, more.
And finally, exhausted, we fell back. But we had it on the truck.
I arrived back home with a mission: get rid of my extra stuff. I plowed through the overloaded mail box in my office, throwing away old journals, magazine subscriptions, newspapers, and the junk mail that was cluttering my life. I sighed with relief at my little accomplishment.
And then I arrived home. “The packages came in today,” Lori informed me. The packages included the boxes of stuff I couldn’t bear to see thrown away from Mom and Dad’s house. “It was a ‘package deal,’” I quipped, that included the pictures of my first haircut, my brother Mark throwing me the football, my brother Lowell in his 1963 Altus High School letter jacket, and my brother Dougie and me playing together.”
No, that’s not junk. Junk belongs to someone else.
So, I’m keeping my stuff…
At least for now…
Or until our kids can go through it…
Someday…
Somehow…
And decide what stuff they want.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Grateful for the generations that brought us freedom
The black and white picture of the B-24 on the front of the time worn postcard caught my attention. I flipped it over to find my dad’s barely legible handwriting, smeared as it was by an aged water stain. It was postmarked, December 12, 1944, from San Marcos Army Air Field, San Marcos, Tx.
“Dear Folks,” it began---“folks” being the word Dad used to address his parents---“boy am I tired! We had a night/day mission last night…” He was in training as a navigator for the Air Force during WWII.
Dad was only 20 then, younger than my two sons. I’ve seen his military pictures: full face, rosy cheeks, bright eyes, chest thrust back, proud to be wearing his USAF uniform, anxious to serve his country, more anxious to survive and put his arms around my mom.
I was not even a glint in his eye then.
And his “folks,” my grandparents, were more than ten years younger than me the day I read that postcard just last week as I helped Mom and Dad move out of their home town of 58 years, the town they returned to after WWII and the Korean War, the place they chose to settle, raise a family, and fulfill their version of the American Dream.
Tom Brokaw appropriately coined the phrase, ‘The Greatest Generation,” to describe the men and women who came out of the Depression, won the great victories of WWII, and made the sacrifices to build their world---the fruits of which we enjoy today.
Not all the letters in Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation Speaks (1999), are from people on the front lines. Some are from those who did not see action but were nonetheless willing to serve wherever they were asked.
Roger Newburger was one such man. He was with the Army Core of Engineers on Oahu and never made it to the front. “I would have tried to do whatever I was told to do, but I think the guys would have been safer without me.” Years later, after seeing the film, Saving Private Ryan, Newburger went to his car and wept for 30 minutes, so affected was he “because of what the real warriors went through.”
My dad was a Roger Newburger---willing to serve wherever he was asked but grateful he didn’t have to face the enemy eye to eye. Thankfully, WWII came to a close before he was deployed, and he served as a dentist in a medical facility in Seoul, South Korea during the Korean War.
My neighbor and childhood friend, Kim Parrish, had a picture of his dad---whom I respectfully addressed as Big Jim---in his WWII army uniform. Big Jim served in active combat. Stone-faced in that picture, he stared intently straight ahead, as if he knew danger was imminent. And it was. I admired him immensely and begged him to tell me war stories. He refused, and I was too young to understand why.
Even though Dad was not in combat, I was no less proud of him and appreciative of others like him who were willing to go to the front, even if they never had to.
So, this Independence Day I shall not only celebrate freedom but remember and reflect on the sacrifices of those who served wherever they were asked---those of the Greatest Generation as well as the others---generations of people who have secured for me the freedom to enjoy a day of celebration.
And I shall be sad yet grateful for those who didn’t make it home to embrace their spouse and hold their children and pursue their dreams.
As I walk with Dad down the hall of the retirement center which is his and Mom’s new home, he grasps me tightly by the arm to steady himself. His is now a different kind of tired than the one he wrote about as the 20 year-old navigator in training.
And as we walk, we pass two elderly women chatting.
“You say you have a brother who is buried in the country?” the one shouts so her companion can hear the question.
“Yes, yes, I do,” her friend responds with like volume. “He went to the war years ago…but he made it back.”
I’m glad he did.
And for others like him.
Especially the one who holds my arm as I walk him to his room, so he can finally rest.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
“Dear Folks,” it began---“folks” being the word Dad used to address his parents---“boy am I tired! We had a night/day mission last night…” He was in training as a navigator for the Air Force during WWII.
Dad was only 20 then, younger than my two sons. I’ve seen his military pictures: full face, rosy cheeks, bright eyes, chest thrust back, proud to be wearing his USAF uniform, anxious to serve his country, more anxious to survive and put his arms around my mom.
I was not even a glint in his eye then.
And his “folks,” my grandparents, were more than ten years younger than me the day I read that postcard just last week as I helped Mom and Dad move out of their home town of 58 years, the town they returned to after WWII and the Korean War, the place they chose to settle, raise a family, and fulfill their version of the American Dream.
Tom Brokaw appropriately coined the phrase, ‘The Greatest Generation,” to describe the men and women who came out of the Depression, won the great victories of WWII, and made the sacrifices to build their world---the fruits of which we enjoy today.
Not all the letters in Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation Speaks (1999), are from people on the front lines. Some are from those who did not see action but were nonetheless willing to serve wherever they were asked.
Roger Newburger was one such man. He was with the Army Core of Engineers on Oahu and never made it to the front. “I would have tried to do whatever I was told to do, but I think the guys would have been safer without me.” Years later, after seeing the film, Saving Private Ryan, Newburger went to his car and wept for 30 minutes, so affected was he “because of what the real warriors went through.”
My dad was a Roger Newburger---willing to serve wherever he was asked but grateful he didn’t have to face the enemy eye to eye. Thankfully, WWII came to a close before he was deployed, and he served as a dentist in a medical facility in Seoul, South Korea during the Korean War.
My neighbor and childhood friend, Kim Parrish, had a picture of his dad---whom I respectfully addressed as Big Jim---in his WWII army uniform. Big Jim served in active combat. Stone-faced in that picture, he stared intently straight ahead, as if he knew danger was imminent. And it was. I admired him immensely and begged him to tell me war stories. He refused, and I was too young to understand why.
Even though Dad was not in combat, I was no less proud of him and appreciative of others like him who were willing to go to the front, even if they never had to.
So, this Independence Day I shall not only celebrate freedom but remember and reflect on the sacrifices of those who served wherever they were asked---those of the Greatest Generation as well as the others---generations of people who have secured for me the freedom to enjoy a day of celebration.
And I shall be sad yet grateful for those who didn’t make it home to embrace their spouse and hold their children and pursue their dreams.
As I walk with Dad down the hall of the retirement center which is his and Mom’s new home, he grasps me tightly by the arm to steady himself. His is now a different kind of tired than the one he wrote about as the 20 year-old navigator in training.
And as we walk, we pass two elderly women chatting.
“You say you have a brother who is buried in the country?” the one shouts so her companion can hear the question.
“Yes, yes, I do,” her friend responds with like volume. “He went to the war years ago…but he made it back.”
I’m glad he did.
And for others like him.
Especially the one who holds my arm as I walk him to his room, so he can finally rest.
Email David B.Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
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