Putting Choices In Perspective

"You have nobody to blame but yourself". In this day and age, is that advice still considered wise counsel?

A small confession. I possess a bad habit that I particularly regret, yet it's a bad habit that I've never been able to shake: I tend to talk over people after I've asked them a question, stepping on their answer instead of being patient and polite enough to wait my turn to listen and learn.

It's a natural problem I have. As frustrating as it is to admit, it seems to be in my nature to behave this way.

An admission that leads to this observation: just because something comes naturally, that does not make it welcome, that does ennoble it as "good". Shouldn't it be a sign of maturity, that we can grow to recognize how much the ability to do something is in itself not the justification for actually doing it..? Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should... even if it's something that comes naturally to us.

If we're truly committed to survival through self-improvement, shouldn't we search for when and where it makes sense to place ourselves at odds with our own nature? Could we not say, that the most worthwhile self-improvement can most readily come to us when we are at war with nature?

What is the true result of our natural behavior; for any individual aspiring to a more righteous life, this would be one of the hardest answers to perceive, requiring as it does a full measure of honesty, humility, and patience... qualities that tend to come rather unnaturally to the human species.

Looking back over a mis-spent life, I can see now, with painful clarity, how so many of my natural habits have hurt me. Was this an insight that needed so much time to come into focus?

The honest answer is no. But for too many years, I was at war with reality instead of being at war with nature. The real reason for my finding myself in my present situation can be found... in my mirror: in the accumulation of habits I've nurtured, and in the ones I've denied myself.

Can this be one of the dividing lines between the conflicting worldviews imperfectly labeled "left" and "right"? Does being "on the right" mean that I am now at war with nature, as when I used to be "on the left" meant that I was at war with reality?

When someone allows themselves the false belief that bad habits should produce good results, what happens when reality contradicts them? They either look inward, towards the history of their behavior, to perceive which of their chosen reactions, which of their natural habits, deserves the blame. Through this insight we can come to see the need for a second nature, a renewal of ourselves through the adoption of more fruitful behavior.

Or: they may deflect their gaze outward, where the only conclusion remaining in sight is to look to fix the blame upon the habits and behaviors of others. They are then looking for a scapegoat, an excuse that will enable them to engage in a false conflict, rather than the necessary one to be waged against their own inner nature.

So much for honesty. So much for humility. So much for reality.

As we review our reactions to the circumstances that life has dealt us, as we trace a line to connect the results that have arisen from our choices, which direction does the search lead us, where do we find ourselves looking: to a destination within, or without?

When we find ourselves soaking wet, can it really be someone else's fault that we chose to take a long walk off a short pier..?

Smile Time

"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity."
___ G.K. Chesterton

If you've had a rough week of bad news and bad breaks, if you accidentally made a fool of yourself in front of other people because of a silly mistake you could have avoided, then this is a video for You..!

Any one of these vignettes serves as an accurate metaphor for my recent stumblings at work lately, so I consider the laughs they provoke very helpful medicine, and a timely reminder to smile at myself more often, if I am to bear my self-initiated problems with good grace. And hopefully to remember, once and for all, that the moment I declare "I know what I'm doing" is usually the moment right before things fall apart!

Rarely will you see such comedy timing, and poetic justice, outside of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon:



"Whoa, Nellie!"

American Hegemony

Former Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean remarked in 2003's New Hampshire primary, that America "should be planning for a time when it is not the world's greatest superpower : 'We have to take a different approach [to diplomacy]. We won't always have the strongest military.' "

I was remined of that famous quote the moment I watched this ominous scene:



For all his faults, and despite all the disagreements I have with his policies, I don't get any pleasure out of seeing this done to the President of the United States. It's a sight to sadden the soul. All America is being humiliated in this video, not just its President.


The genius of the American system of government is that it perceived the truth about the people it governs: that Man is a fallen being, with a capacity for evil, and certainly a propensity for error. The checks and balances, the struggle that is involved in getting anything done, is meant to test ideas and the mettle of the mind's they spring from. The notion that Man can become so wise as to not need advice, as to not benefit from the judgment that comes with scrutiny, must surely, almost by definition, be un-American.


Yet when balance and judgment and humility were most needed, where were they? How to keep faith in democracy if its implementation seems to weaken the very system it's meant to uphold? How to keep faith in America?

Why are these modern-day commissars not shaking the democratically-elected President's hand as he moves down this line-up? Are they not supposed to, according to the protocol of the event? If not, why doesn't President Obama know that? If they are deliberately snubbing him, why do they think they can get away with that? What faith do they have in America, and in Americans?


God help the Republic.

Blessings In Disguise: Tragedy And The Inner Strength Of The Young

I do my share of complaining about "kids today", about the cynicism and sloth and vulgarity I see in such abundance in young people. Therefore it's all the more important for me to pay proper respect to the bigger picture, admitting that there's also a lot to be proud of about our newest generation. Old(er) dogs like me could learn a few new tricks from the many wonderful examples of their inner strength... if we can but summon the humility to perceive the good within them as readily as the bad.

First, the amazing example of 17 year-old Nick Goldner's remarkable efforts to renew the lives of children marked by tragedy... as he was when he was younger himself:

West Allis - Nick Goldner still remembers the treasured Dr. Seuss anthology he read over and over after his family lost everything - even his favorite blanket - in a house fire a decade ago.
He turned to it constantly for comfort in the two-bedroom apartment he shared with his parents and three brothers as they waited for their home to be rebuilt and their lives to restart.
...
So when it came time for Goldner to choose an Eagle Scout project, he selected a charity that provides books to children in crisis situations. His enthusiastic efforts resulted in the largest single donation ever to the Waunakee-based With Wings and a Halo, according to the organization's chief executive and co-founder Paul Gilbertson.
"I'm really proud of him," said Gilbertson, whose organization provides backpacks filled with children's books to sheriff's deputies throughout the state.
So far, Goldner has collected 4,000 books and about $1,100. In addition to the donation to With Wings and a Halo, Goldner said, he also plans to give some of the books to local fire departments so they can be passed on to other children who have lost their homes.
Although he estimates he has put about 350 hours into the project, Goldner credits the generosity of other students - both Nathan Hale and others in the Milwaukee area - for making it such a success.
"Here, I was really only expecting 1,000 books and 50 bucks," he said. "But the students here at Hale blew my expectations out of the water."
...
Goldner also highlighted efforts by Hoover Elementary School in New Berlin, where students gave 480 books - more than one per student - and Fox River Christian Church, which donated $100 and some books to the charity.
The work for the students isn't over yet. Goldner said he plans to drive the books in a donated truck to Waunakee, where he and 10 friends will sort through them by their intended readers' ages and place them - about a dozen at a time - into backpacks.

We follow that with another incredible story, this time out of Florida, where one inspiring 13 year-old's example is used to shine a light on the silent sacrifices made by an estimated million other young people:

BOYNTON BEACH — When she gets home after a long day, Ashley Coyle does what any grown up would do.
She prepares dinner, washes dishes, folds laundry and gives her sister a bath. All typical household chores for most any adult.
Only Ashley is no grown up.
She's barely a teen.
The 13-year-old is a grown-up kid - children in mostly single-family homes who take on adult roles because the parents can't juggle it all. It's becoming all too common lately with more people losing jobs and families cutting costs.
That's why the American Association of Caregiving Youth has a waiting list of middle schoolers hoping to join its program.
The Caregiving Youth Project, based out of Boca Raton, searches for middle schoolers like Ashley whose daily responsibilities extend beyond homework and making the bed. It is the only branch of AACY in the United States.
Project staff is working with more than 200 students in five Palm Beach County schools who care for sick or elderly relatives or for brothers and sisters at home while their mom or dad works. They're in charge of medicine, food, cleaning, cooking. And most of the time, homework comes last.
"As soon as I get home, I see what my sister needs first and then do the chores," Ashley said.
The staff of Caregiving Youth works to prevent these children from dropping out of school to care for their family.
"These kids have stress," said Connie Siskowski, who started the project in 2006. "Knowing they're not alone is important to them."
An estimated 1.3 million children throughout the United States ages 8-18 are youth caregivers, according to Siskowski. ...
In Ashley's case, her mother, Tania Coyle, works full-time and her sister, Jessica, who was born with a genetic disorder, needs constant attention. Though Jessica is the big sister at age 18, she looks no older than Ashley. She rarely speaks and trusts few people. Ashley is her best friend.
Their mom works as a nurse's aid and barely earns $10 an hour - not enough to pay for daycare or even a babysitter, which is why Ashley is in charge.
"I never in my life thought I'd have to depend on my daughter like I do," Coyle said. "It's been very hard. I need my daughter to feel like a kid."
Through generous donors, Caregiving Youth provides help with home health care so the children can be with friends or get to school on time. It's raised money for laptops and for items like wheelchair ramps and scooters for families in medical need. It also provides field trips to grocery stores where the children are taught how to shop and how to use a slow cooker.
...
"It's hard. Some days are not always the best," Ashley said. "My mom gets so stressed and my sister gets in a bad mood. I always want them to be happy."
...
At Boca Raton Community Middle School, where Ashley is in the eighth grade, enrollment in the Caregiving Youth Project doubled last year. It jumped from 8.5 percent to 16 percent and Siskowski expects those numbers to keep growing.

I note that both these stories of amazing young people seem to share a common origin; it was from seeds of tragedy that they were able to grow their respective abilities to see the good in life, particularly how to find the potential for good waiting to grow within themselves. However unbidden their struggles may have been, their inspiring accomplishments may never have been realized if theirs had been less eventful childhoods. One generation's visible success against great odds can ensure a migration of that success, handing it down to the next generation coming behind them (or ahead of them), by learning from example.

We can't always choose our circumstances, but we can choose our reactions to them; that's a timely lesson we need to re-affirm, no matter our age.

The Perfect Gift

It's been a sad couple of months for US-UK diplomatic relations. Between the unnecessarily rude return of a valuable (and venerated) bust of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill donated to the White House by former Prime Minister Tony Blair as a gesture of friendship, to last week's "amateur reception" of current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, political satirists can no longer complain that there is nothing to parody about Barack Obama.

There was speculation that Obama's dissatisfaction with the Churchill bust was due to tough actions taken by Britain against the extremely violent Mau-Mau uprising in early-1950s Kenya, during Churchill's second and final tenure in office, and the suffering endured by Obama's Kenyan grandfather during that rebellion.

It's been a while, so it's understandable if we've all forgotten this, but President Bush's father, former President and former pilot George H. W. Bush, had his plane shot out of the sky by the Japanese during WWII; yet I don't recall him bearing a grudge against Japan for his near-death experience while he was in office. (Unless that televised act of vomiting all over their embarrassed Prime Minister was a staged retribution...) He put the war behind him. Presidents Nixon, Kennedy and Eisenhower were veterans of the Second World War, and seemed able to put aside their experiences with the Japanese and German people who had tried so hard to kill them and the men in their commands not so long before... yet Obama still bears a grudge against Churchill?

Barack Obama may be the most powerful man in the world, but increasingly he appears as also the most pathetic. For all that he has at his fingertips, this week's telling exchange of gifts between President Obama and Prime Minister Brown reveals Obama as poor indeed, a naked emperor exposed as lacking the greatest gift we can give to ourselves: the blessing of humility.

When it comes to giving a gift to a friend, you are supposed to think less of yourself, and more of your friend. Ideally the search is for something the friend would have dearly loved to have gotten for themselves, but might have held off doing, usually out of self-deferential humility ("I don't deserve this, you shouldn't have done it"), or for not having the time to devote to such self-satisfying searches themselves. The more you value the friendship, the more readily you can summon the imagination, and the patient perseverance, to perceive what would make "the perfect gift" to give that friend. Such gifts are an investment of time as well as treasure, so that when the friend's eyes meet yours, you both know the unspoken truth: with your gift you gave some of yourself, to me.

Gordon Brown seems to have had experience giving gifts, judging by the thought that must have gone into the selection of one particular item he presented to President Obama: an ornamental pen holder made from wood taken from the HMS Gannet, a British sloop which cruised the Mediterranean and Red Seas in the latter half of the 19th century as part of Britain's expensive commitment to rid the world of Islamist slave ships carrying black Africans into a life of bondage in the Middle East:

In the Red Sea, the Africans it saved would have come, among other places, from Kenya. ... It is quite possible that grandfather’s ancestors would, had it not been for the Royal Navy, have been carried away to slavery in Arabia.

What thoughtful gift does Obama offer, in return? 25 classic American movies on dvd. The Daily Mail prints an unofficial list:

1- Citizen Kane
2- The Godfather
3- Casablanca
4- Raging Bull
5- Singin' In The Rain
6- Gone With The Wind
7- Lawrence Of Arabia
8- Schindler's List
9- Vertigo
10- The Wizard Of Oz
11- City Lights
12- The Searchers
13- Star Wars
14- Psycho
15- 2001: A Space Odyssey
16- Sunset Boulevard
17- The Graduate
18- The General
19- On The Waterfront
20- It's A Wonderful Life
21- Chinatown
22- Some Like It Hot
23- The Grapes Of Wrath
24- ET
25- To Kill A Mockingbird

Presuming that he did bestir himself to pay attention to the films on this list, it seems that Obama knows as little about American movies as he does everything else: offering #7, Lawrence of Arabia, isn't even an American movie, it's British.

An article in the Telegraph offering background on Prime Minister Brown's visit gets to the root of the cause of the diplomatic black eye delivered to the Anglo-American bond of friendship; an appalling inexperience fuels Obama's lack of perspective and monumental ingratitude. It also explains why, unlike the other wartime Presidents before him, Obama may not be willing to see a nation's big picture, good and bad, its acts of atonement as well as its sins; that would require the gift of humility, to admit that none of us are perfect.

British officials [admit] that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy". A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. ...

The American source said: "Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.
...
The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."
...
The Sunday Telegraph understands that one of Mr Obama's most prominent African American backers, whose endorsement he spent two years cultivating, has told friends that he detects a weakness in Mr Obama's character.

"The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this," the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. "He's underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk." A Democratic strategist, who is friends with several senior White House aides, revealed that the president has regularly appeared worn out and drawn during evening work sessions with senior staff in the West Wing and has been forced to make decisions more quickly than he is comfortable.

Helpfully, in the spirit of friendship, the Telegraph article leaves some clues for the next head of state scheduled to visit the White House, as they puzzle over what might constitute the Perfect Gift for President Obama..:

"People say he looks tired more often than they're used to," the strategist said. "He's still calm, but there have been flashes of irritation when he thinks he's being pushed to make a decision sooner than he wants to make it. He looks like he needs a cigarette."

Hero's Welcome For Miracle Pilot Captain Sully

It's a hero's welcome for the pilot who made the miraculous landing on the Hudson River two weeks ago, as he returns home to Danville, California, to be cheered by a crowd of 3,000 celebrants. Captain "Sully" continues to inspire: in the middle of all this attention, he still retains the humility to pointedly include a mention of the work of the flight crew during his brief speech to the cheering crowds:

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger was given a hero's homecoming, complete with a marching band, in Danville, the San Francisco suburb where he and his family live.
Sullenberger said he was grateful for the outpouring of support since the Jan. 15 emergency landing, and that he and his crew were only doing their jobs.
"Circumstance determined that it was this experienced crew that was scheduled to fly that particular flight on that particular day," he told the crowd.
"But I know I can speak for the entire crew when I tell you we were simply doing the job we were trained to do."
Sullenberger's brief comments were his first since he brought Flight 1549 to an emergency river landing in New York City. All 155 people on board survived.
The pilot's wife, Lorraine Sullenberger, said through tears that she was amazed at the warm treatment the family has received. She said she was not surprised by her husband's heroism.
"I have always known him to be an exemplary pilot. I knew what the outcome would be that day because I knew my husband," she said. "But mostly for me, he's the man that makes my cup of tea every morning."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

9-Year Old Boy Puts Jujitsu Hold On Pit Bull To Save Girl's Life

Chivalry isn't dead; a 9-year old Jujitsu student saved a 12-year old girl and her little dog from a vicious dog attack, by putting his martial arts training to use:

Drew Heredia said he and a friend were walking a small dog Dec. 30 when a pit bull jumped on the dog. The unidentified 12-year-old girl reportedly tried to save her dog, prompting the pit bull to turn on her.

Heredia said he jumped on the pit bull and applied a choke hold that he learned while taking classes at a Brazilian jujitsu studio in southwest Bakersfield."

It was kind of a hear-pounding moment," Heredia said. "It was very scary."

He said he held the dog for 20 minutes until an animal control officer arrived.

“At first, I wanted to kick it, but then I thought it’s not a good idea, because it could get my leg,” Heredia said.

The girl was taken to Mercy Southwest Hospital where she was treated for puncture wounds.
...

If you follow the link you can watch a remarkable video interview with the modest chevalier, illustrating once again how often humility and heroism tend to co-exist in equal measure.

I wonder if the absence of one precludes the potential for the other... and if there were to be an absence of one, from where would one generate the other.

Taking A Second Look At Intelligence

Everything old is new again, to the new mind. I would expect that for as long as there have been leaders, there has been an accompanying argument about how to measure the intelligence of these leaders, and how to even agree on what is being measured when we talk about a leader’s “intelligence”.

The recent US presidential campaign brought forth many attempts to explore and possibly define terms we tend to view too narrowly, words with worlds of meaning behind them; for example, “expertise”, “intelligence”, and “wisdom”. It seemed to me that one common ingredient in these articles was the admonition to stretch the subject into a large enough frame so that the search for a mutually agreeable definition would be one that lassos a three-dimensional point of view, succeeding in seeing all that there is to see.

Thomas Sowell’s November 11 column, “Intellectuals”, is the latest article I was reading on this topic. Citing fellow columnist Bill Kristoff’s definition of an “intellectual” as “[someone] interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity," and as someone who "read the classics”, Dr. Sowell lists several political leaders who were painted as “intellectual” or “anti-intellectual” through superficial and selective observation. People saw only what they hoped to see, rather than what was truly there to be seen:

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that [Adlai] Stevenson "could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book."
…
As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.

Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.

Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.

Sowell’s short list brought back up to the surface some half-submerged early childhood memories of my own mother, after a hard day of housework, cooking, and child-rearing, curled up in her favorite chair to end her day reading Josephus on some occasions, Thomas Aquinas on others, and C.S. Lewis for the times when we kids had really wore her out and her mind needed rest. Who would have imagined that the quiet lady tending her garden on sunny days would study such books on rainy ones?

His examples also reminded me of another personal anecdote. Once upon a time I participated in a Toronto Scrabble tournament, where the money from my ticket of entry went towards a charity for literacy. There were to be four of us per table, and the enticement was that among the four we would get to play against a “Canadian Celebrity”. My ticket led me to the assigned table, and upon sitting down we all introduced ourselves to each other. First up was our “celebrity”, a novelist and journalist of many years experience. Next was a middle aged psychiatrist, followed by his wife, a magazine editor (names all withheld to protect the innocent.. :). Last in the group was myself, in my mid-twenties at the time, happily employed as a laborer in a warehouse, loading boxes onto trucks for a living. I was forthrightly excused from much of the rest of the ensuing conversation, as they discussed the books and articles and plays that they all shared common interest in, and the colleges and universities they had attended. At the appointed time, the game began, and guess who won.....? Me, the only one who hadn’t graduated from college or university. If they had bothered to ask me I could have told them that my family had played Scrabble together at least once a week from the time I could read to the time I moved out on my own, in fact it remained a fun family ritual we enjoyed whenever we found ourselves re-united at holidays and birthdays. I’ll forever smile at pairing the memory of the eye-rolling that greeted my introduction at this charity Scrabble game, with the incredulous looks in those same eyes when the final score was announced. “Why are you working in a warehouse??”, one of the losers couldn’t resist asking me after the game, as if such a position was an embarrassing curse, rather than a reasonable and honorable occupation.

That was a demonstrated lesson in humility that I go back to whenever I sense myself failing similar temptations to be presumptuous today; is my initial reaction really an informed one? What is involved in coming to an informed judgment about a problem that requires a decision? What is everything that should be observed, when I’m trying to size up a worthy applicant for my team at work, or who should be promoted, or who should be let go during the inevitable downsizing. What do I really know about this other person, and what is it that I believe without sufficient observation? What will I learn if I think about a situation a second time?

Presumptions seem to be as common a malady to the human mind as the common cold is to the human body. It’s a simple matter to look at something and presume that a first glance at a part is actually a complete scrutiny of the whole. It’s no accident that all great art rewards a second look, all great books offer renewed meaning through repeated reading, all great music grows on us as we dare add to our first impression.

Watching the anecdotal collection of Obama voters in the John Ziegler video that Truepeers wrote about this morning, there’s some good lessons for our side to learn from, as we watch confident people confronted with so much new information that it challenges their self-perceptions as “intelligent” citizens. What to do about the holes that such revelations bring about? Dismiss them, as the voters seem to do in this video, or struggle to embrace them, as we would wish them to? I concur, in principle, with a point that regular reader na makes in the comments thread: how much more successfully would John McCain supporters do in such a test of perception? Can it really be said that one side does indeed possess a more rounded understanding of what that long civic debate was meant to resolve? Does one side have the full picture and the other side have all the holes?

I think Ziegler's addition to the ongoing measurement of "intelligence" is to reveal how common an ailment it has become to not even know how to determine what we don't know. Evidently these voters don't spend a lot of time talking to people who disagree with their views, otherwise how else to explain that so much of this information was "news" to them, on the day of their vote? Is it really so humiliating to talk to someone who sees things differently than they do, and to ask them why that is? And how are they to handle the humbling that should come with the revelation that there is more to a subject than may at first meet the eye..?

Well, I'd like to think I know how I would handle it, because I undergo it each and every week, at our Thursday night gatherings in the Atrium of the Central branch of the Vancouver Public Library. We three Covenant Zone bloggers meet in front of the Blenz coffee shop from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm once again to debate the issues we blog about, wearing our blue scarves in solidarity with our French colleagues in France who, in their own way, try to test and sharpen their understanding of how they perceive the challenges of the world as they see it. We don't agree about much, which is what always makes it a learning experience.

Sufficiency of perception, achieved through the cultivation of the humility to observe the limitations of our understanding, and an appreciation (rather than dismissal) of the “holes” that allow for continued growth of that understanding; there’s my long-winded, three-sided contribution to the challenge of proposing a three-dimensional definition for intelligence.

Filling Holes

I've just about finished reading The Tide Is Turning Towards Catholicism, by David J. Hartline, and of all the lessons it's teaching me, there's a simple one that it seems I will be re-learning over and over again, as yesterday I learned it for the millionth time: to learn how little I really know.

I'm not much into sports, so when I got to the book's 11th chapter, on "Catholic athletes and coaches", I was mightily tempted to skip it, and zip ahead to chapter 12, "Megachurches, Salvation, and other debated issues", which sounded much meatier and more to my interest. Ankle-deep into that next chapter I mentally forced myself to go back and tackle the book in the order the author intended; how could I know whether or not the previous chapter was not worth reading, unless I at least made the effort to listen to what he had to say? Why was I presuming that the author wouldn't find a way to at least make his stories interesting? He had, after all, succeeded in doing so in every other chapter I had read so far. So I steeled myself to read it.

Was I ever glad I did. It ended up being the most inspiring chapter of the book to date, and introduced me to someone a non-sports person like myself would probably never have heard about otherwise: the remarkable Coach Lou Holtz.

Author David Hartline quotes from an interview he had conducted with the former Notre Dame football coach, and it was so inspiring that it whetted my appetite for more. Taking my lead from the chapter that I almost chose not to read, I searched for the full interview at the author's website; at the end of the online interview came this marvelous suggestion for a game plan for living life:

Coach Holtz: You know Dave it has taken me a long time to figure this out but I now live by the belief that if something isn’t going to bother you on your death bed then it shouldn’t bother you now. I can’t say that I do that with every problem, but I am trying.
[Let] me leave the Catholic Report readers with a couple of thoughts. There are four things that we must do and have to succeed in life.

1. Something to live for
2. Someone to love and love us
3. Something to hope for
4. Something to believe in

Due to my vanity I almost ended up missing out on discovering this most helpful advice. I can't help but think if I had heard it twenty years ago I would have lived a much more meaningful pair of decades... if I could have summoned the humility to feel the need to listen to him in the first place.

Goes to show that we can just never know what lies ahead; try as we might, think as we will, we really can't know everything. We can't really know who will and who will not prove to be of service to us.

When we're young we're taught the sensible advice, "Don't Talk To Strangers". But like so much else in life, that should be a principle, not a rule; as we are changed through aging, this admonition should adapt as well, growing as we grow, maybe even to the point of us growing out of its first formulation, in the same way that we eventually outgrow the teeth we first use to chew our daily bread.

If we never listen to strangers, how do we test our ideas? Is it so impressive to win an argument against yourself? Even if we're convinced we're right, do we really have the whole truth..? Do we really see the big picture... or are there holes needing to be filled? How do we even know what holes might need filling, unless we interact with different people with different experiences, holding different pieces to the puzzle.

The old analogy of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind; the lord of a castle looks into his courtyard, and watches a group of blind men examining an elephant, by touch. Being blind, they can't know that it's an elephant, so they are busily relaying to each other the conclusions they are drawing from their individual pieces, together trying to define this big picture. Their best guess is shattered by the lord surveying the test, who shouts down to them: "You're describing an elephant."

In our own lives, we tend to think of ourselves as the lord of the castle, and not who we really are, one of the groping blind men, with holes to fill.

UPDATE: Welcome readers of the Catholic Report! Thank you for visiting our Canadian team blog. My usual "beat" is to write about European news, searching for stories that don't seem to get picked up by other North American sites.

Here are some past articles, some with good news and some with bad, that you might find of interest:

Looking For Reasons To Keep Faith In The UK

French Teens In Suicidal Leap Of Faith

Blind Faith Decapitates Madonna In French Church

France Destroys Her Churches

Learning How To Grow Old

I had a delightful conversation this morning, getting to meet a rather remarkable teacher.

After church this morning I went next door for the scheduled social event, but I sheepishly admit it was mostly to snack on a few of the baked goods and grab a quick coffee. Usually I’m a chatty and friendly enough character, but this week I’ve been pre-occupied with some clouds on my horizon, and feeling therefore under a shadow, not really much in the mood for socializing.

Soon after I was establishing myself in my little corner, a frail older woman was escorted over to my table by one of the younger women hosting the event. By her body language I understood that it would be appreciated if I could keep the elderly guest company during her brunch. Which I dutifully did.

And boy, talk about being at the right place at the right time, meeting just the right person: I got all the lessons I realized I've been needing, delivered as clearly as if they were wrapped in a box with a big ribbon around it.

My unexpected dinner companion had a mind that was as sharp as her body was frail, and I left over an hour later with my mind bursting with good advice and my life enriched by seeing such a great example of how to live the life we're given.

What an active person: she was still an eager student, still memorizing poetry, as a hobby, and casting around for another language to start learning, to add to her French, Spanish, German and Latin, on top of her native English. She explained her philosophy about keeping the mind exercised, and the good that it does us in doing so. She was a widower, yet like my own grandmother who outlived her husband by a good twenty-five years, she was kept in good spirits through continued contact with her family, enlarged now to include many grandchildren. The pain of a terrible loss had been balanced by an eventual great gain, and therefore there was much to find to smile about.

Same with her studying; she made light of how one’s mind can so easily forget names or dates, as new gets piled on top of the old. So long as new memories keep coming, it’s not so bad to lose track of some of the older ones they seem to replace. This was of particular comfort to me, since I’ve been noticing all too clearly of late that my memory is frankly not what it used to be; lately I’ve been reflecting on when my mother starting fretting about losing her memory, when she was my current age, and I see now I never truly understood the depths of her frustration until I recently started sharing the same fate. There may not be anything we can do to stop it from happening, but there was a way demonstrated to me this morning, of learning to bear it with grace and good humor.

Lest it mistakenly seem like I was captive to a lecture, let me quickly add that she asked many questions of me throughout our long conversation, often leaning forward as she would inquire, "what do you think about that", so that her personal observations could be tested against my own experience. It was more important to her to learn what’s right, than to learn that she was right. If only I could develop more of that kind of curiosity... well, maybe now I can, now that I see how successfully it contributes to keeping the mind sharp.

I was probably most impressed to hear of her ready acceptance of computers into her life. Most people past a certain age are intimidated by them to the point that they simply declare they are too old to learn such new tricks. But she was, completely knowledgeable about the internet, as one example, seeing how wonderful a means of communication it was. I can only hope I will be as courageous when I reach her age, in embarking on learning new things when I know going in to them that I will be doomed to spend a lot of time struggling to get a handle on them. It’s all a matter of standing back and adopting a long enough long-term view, so that the good lying wait in the future can be seen to tower above the struggle of the present. Given the trouble I’m having this year with adapting to a bewildering (for me) barrage of new technology at work, here was a teacher that came along at just the right time to give me the little boost I most needed.

There’s much else I could add, such as the incredible series of coincidental areas of interest that we shared. Maybe I’ll put some of that in another post, someday, on the prevalence of coincidence in life, as compared to fiction.

When I debated on even going to the after-church event this morning, given how downcast my mood was at the time, I never could have imagined I would be leaving it as empowered as I ended up becoming, thanks to the renewal of enthusiasm I picked up from my new acquaintance. Goes to show that no matter what the circumstances, we can just never "know" what the future has in store for us.

Maybe that’s the hardest lesson to learn of them all… To age with humility.

One In A Million

At birth our eyeballs are scarcely any smaller than they are when we are fully grown, which accounts for infants having such disproportionally large heads.

Yet isn't it interesting how the use we make of that body part is constantly growing as we grow, adapting as we age. As children we may witness our parents' daily sacrifices on our behalf, but it is often not until much later in our lives that we learn to see what it was that we had been really looking at, right before our eyes, during those early glimpses we undertook as infants.

It's tempting to view history as a narrative cut from the same mold as that of our own life. We find it easy to believe that when we were kids life was much better than it has become now that we are adults; similarly, we readily accept that "The Good Old Days" of our nation's infancy, or of our civilization's early life in the cradle, are giving way to a new, unprecedented time of despair as the nation and culture around us decays and grows frail with age.

Or so we may come to believe, if we don't strive to perceive as much as possible, of the present as well as the past.

On the whole, are people really generally worse, or better, than they ever were? When we envision a "Golden Age" in some fog-encrusted past, are we painting a picture with the same nostalgic airbrush we might take to our own childhoods, or are we truly seeing all that there is to be seen?

The revelations offered today through our evolution in communications technology certainly tempt us to conclude that ours is a world filled with unprecedented evil, unparralelled tragedy, and insurmountable temptations to forsake Doing The Right Thing. We see these problems because so many of them are, for once, readily at hand, the world's sadism and cruelty dumped onto our doorstep through the channeling of a million gutters: television, radio, newspapers, the internet, cel phones and combinations of these media shrink our world so that, for the first time in history, we see so much more of our civilization's daily story that the millions of mis-deeds pile up like garbage at an Earth Day rally.

Does there remain a good soul lurking in all this rubbish?

It's understandable that we would see all this, and despair. But if we are persistent, and honest, in studying all that we see, if we hold to a belief that somewhere there must exist some good within the bad, our faith-driven perseverance can reward us with one story plucked out of that million, such a jewel of human decency that it actually outshines its context, as a candle lights a path through the night.

Here's a story out of Georgia, one story out of a million that is enough to inspire me to continue to believe in a future worth living to see:

A 6-year-old Georgia boy said he was simply being a good friend when he rescued his 5-year-old buddy from drowning in a pool.

Fayetteville, Ga., resident Haden Stusak said he was trying to find out what was making a dark spot at the bottom of the pool Sunday when he found his friend Josiah Buddah, 5, unconscious in the water....

"They took me to the hospital. I was dead and couldn't breathe," Buddah told reporters.

A doctor and two nurses performed CPR on Buddah after Stusak pulled him out of the water."

Were friends. That's what friends do," the young hero said.

As it is with heroes, he is humble about his accomplishments:

Haden, who is home schooled, has spent the last several days doing news interviews. But he is weary of the spotlight. He prefers to play in the pool with his brother and sister, diving off the board and splashing around.His mother, on the other hand, is proud of her son."

He's a protector," Stusak said. "I think that comes from having a little sister. He won't hesitate to stand up for what's right."

Every once in a while it's good for we "grown-ups" to see the world temporarily once again through the eyes of a child, for children seem much more capable of seeing the good that the world has to offer. They have yet to lose their childlike faith that good exists, somewhere in the infinite darkness, an abundance of ones in a multitude of millions.

If we grow up and out of that faith, are we really better off, are we really seeing all that there is to see? It's fitting that as the young depend on the old, the old grow to depend on the young, to renew their faith in a positive future; were it not for the sake of our young, what reasons would we find to continue to try and live a good life ourselves?

Perception is an ongoing process, requiring a perennial re-viewing of things, and not a one-time-only snapshot. If at first there seems to be nothing positive to see, shame on us for not having enough faith, and doubt, to summon the nerve to look a second time, in order to observe what must be there... that one in a million departure from the norm.

Thank you, Haden, for being one in a million, for swimming against the current and believing that choosing to do good is the right thing to do. Just as you will learn a lot from your elders, we have much to learn from you... if we only maintain the humility to see it.

Heroes

There's never a shortage of villains and fools in the news, so much so we might begin to think there's little goodness left in our world.

What follows, therefore, is a small attempt to help balance the scales of truth by shining a spotlight on some genuinely inspiring heroes, whose stories might otherwise go unheard.

Like any lesson worth learning, often all it takes is a good example for the lesson to be passed on; here are three examples, of initiative, of tenacity, and of alertness, worth learning from.

First, all the way from Switzerland, an account of a little girl saved from drowning by the initiative of a passerby. My translation from the Swiss news site Le Matin:

"Chantal" was walking her dog by herself by the Vevey quay, on Wednesday around 7:00 pm. "As usual", she says. Suddenly, the dog drags her by the wharf and jumps into the port's basin. "I slipped and fell into the water. But I don't know how to swim."

Jérôme Montardy heard a "splash". By chance he happened to be a few meters from the incident. "I did not hesitate, I dove in fully dressed." Hanging onto a chain from the wharf, he tries to rescue "Chantal" who struggles in the "cold" and "silty" water.

Then things fall into place. A couple of passersby arrive as reinforcements. He helps the child to climb back on the wharf. Jérôme Montardy even manages to save the dog.

Yesterday he got to meet "Chantal", and her mother, for the first time since last wednesday. "Thank you for saving my life", acknowledged the young girl. The mother was still emotional. "Thank you", she repeated, unable to say more.
...

Closer to home, the tenacity of a brave soul risking much in order to save a child from being ripped to pieces by a pair of deadly dogs:

[20-year old Jordan Slezak] had been talking with his mother in their Surrey living room when they heard screaming coming from a school yard at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday. ...
"The yelling got worse, like someone screaming for their life," said Slezak, a Kwantlen College welding student.

He and his mom ran outside to see a screaming boy lying in the grass by a basketball court, one pit bull savaging his leg, another one circling and barking.

"There was blood everywhere," Slezak said. "I saw blood all over his face, all over his shirt."
Slezak's mother told him to call 911. He ran into his home and ran out with the phone. His mom yelled for him to get his bat. He ran upstairs and grabbed his wooden Louisville Slugger.

By the time he jumped a fence and reached the boy, the dog was mauling the youngster's arm.
"The first swing I gave to the dog was pretty much like a golf swing to the head," Slezak said. "The second blow was two hands overhead, coming down on to the dog's head."

Slezak chased the two pit bulls to a corner in the fencing and held them at bay until police arrived.

"I was worried that the dog was going to go off and attack somebody else," said Slezak. "It could have been a lot worse."
...
Slezak said the only thing running through his head as he fought the dog off the boy was preventing the child from receiving further injury.

And finally, another Vancouver-area story of heroism illustrating the alertness of a young man whose actions kept a horrible fire's death toll from claiming more than the three lives that it did:

While Roach-Matthews' dad, Bryan Matthews, initially ignored a burning smell he attributed to a toaster, 11-year-old Dustan decided to check the situation out. He heard the tell-tale 'beep-beep' of smoke detectors and saw smoke coming from an apartment in the 155 East 19th St. building.

He raced through the building, warning people on all three floors before exiting, while his dad went back into their apartment to get their cat, Stimpy.

Matthews also tried to ensure people were leaving because some thought the fire was minor. "I'm proud," said Matthews of his son.

"He did a good job because I was ignoring it," said Matthews, who had to go to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. ...

The comment section for the story lists several well-earned messages of thanks and appreciation for our young hero. Graciously, the young man himself writes in, and reveals yet another value within true heroism:

Humility.

My name is Dustan Roach-Matthews and I just want to say thanks to everybody for the nice comments. It was a scary thing that happened and I feel sad for the people that died. I just did what I thought would help people and was glad more people weren't hurt. I'm not Superman or anything just a kid that did what I could to help people. Thank you everybody. God bless the families of the people that died.

Alexis, The 7-Year Old Teacher

"Using her tiny body as a shield, Alexis blocked six gunshots from hitting her mother."

One of the differences separating an adult from a child is experience: the adult, being older, has accumulated more experience at living than the child.

That's not exactly news, I know, but every once in a while a story comes along like this one out of Detroit, reminding me that with age comes a shift in perspective, and if we're not careful we can lose as much as we gain from that change.

This magnificient child is only 7 years old, yet she's able to display a heartfelt appreciation for the treasured blessings filling her world, her sense of gratitude inspiring this remarkable young lady to exemplify a value for life itself that tends to take us older folks far too many years of learning from experience to acquire on our own.

Alexis cried, "Don't hurt my mother!" and jumped into her mother's arms from the back seat.

The old seem forever at odds with the young. There's a natural conflict built into this natural relationship, the conservatism of the old clashing with the rebelliousness of youth. The inexperienced young, in their vanity, can too easily foresake the value of experience itself: "You don't know what it's like", the young will swear to their elders, "you're too old, things are different now".

The old, in their vanity, respond in turn, "What do you know, you're too young". Facing each other across their opposite ends of this chasm, both sides shout in chorus the same accusation: "What do I have to learn from you??"

Hidden within this generational conflict is the simple truth that for either to change, there must be a challenge to their ideas. Through this natural conflict, each generation helps the other, the young testing the old to define in sufficient clarity the ongoing usefulness of the wisdom derived from their experiences, the old testing the young by serving up time-tested standards and expectations for them to reach in their turn.

This Detroit story of heroism in the midst of horror can remind us all to humble ourselves sufficiently so that we can be in a position to learn from anyone, even seven-year old teachers like the remarkable Alexis Goggins.

Seliethia Parker always saw her role as protector for her 7-year-old daughter, Alexis Goggins. But it was Alexis who ended up saving her mother's life by using her little body to shield her mom from a fusillade of bullets.

Doctors told Parker that her heroic little daughter, who was shot six times, would never walk or talk again.

But Alexis has surprised people with her gritty toughness. She's not only walking and talking, she's expected to have a full recovery.

"Everybody's still kind of shocked. This is progressing a little bit more than everybody expected," Parker said on "Good Morning America" today. "They said she should fully recover." Alexis was shot last December when she and her mother were about to get into a car driven by Parker's female friend. Parker's former boyfriend, 29-year-old Calvin Tillie, jumped out of nearby bushes and forced his way into the car.
...
Parker pleaded desperately with Tillie not to harm her or her daughter, but to no avail.

"Me and Alexis was left in the car with him at gunpoint and he starting shooting," Parker told GMA. Fearing for her mother's life, Alexis bolted into the car's front seat, crying out, "Don't hurt my mother."

"Alexis jumped over the seat to try and save my life," Parker said.

Using her tiny body as a shield, Alexis blocked six gunshots from hitting her mother. The bullets pierced her right eye, chin, cheek, chest and jaw. When police arrived to the scene, they found Alexis in a pool of blood, curled beneath the steering wheel.
...
Alexis said she doesn't consider herself a hero and said she wasn't scared during the event.

"I saved my mom," she said and added she loved her mother a lot and didn't want to see her get hurt.

Parker has endless gratitude for her selfless daughter.

"She's my angel and I love her to death," she said.

Is there any real love without gratitude? Is there ever any true growth without humility? Can there ever be a student, without a teacher? These are all opposites, yet they are still connected, still dependant one upon the other.

To deny ourselves the one, is to limit ourselves with the other.

Alexis is a pretty good teacher, and there seems to be quite a few students around the world learning from her lesson... not the least of which is her own teacher: her mother.

Since the attack, Alexis and her family have received more than 200 letters from well-wishers, some from as far away as London. Supporters have also contributed $30,000 to a fund set up for Alexis through her school.
...
Parker says her daughter is a living miracle.

"I'm thanking God every day that me and my baby are still here," she said. "It has taught me to ... appreciate the smaller things in life."

[Hat Tip to I See A Light, A Bright Light ]