Some interesting thoughts on Thanksgiving

From last year - Thanksgiving Proclamations and Thoughts.

This year, an academic piece on the importance of keeping gratitude at the center of Thanksgiving.

We are so blessed in this country. Quotes from a beautiful piece below:

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America. . . .

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere. . . .

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth. . . .

William Bradford, some years after the first Thanksgiving:

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.

Back to Nature

Victor Davis Hanson has thought, taught and written a lot about big issues like war and peace and the rise and fall of civilizations. He believes that when a culture loses its connection to the land - when not many people know what it is like to grow food, etc., that culture starts to lose touch with reality. He sometimes writes about the unreality of the academic world in comparison to the world of farming, for example. He works in both.

Similarly, Stephen R. Covey writes about working in "natural systems" - working a farm or caring for infants, for example, where people must pay attention to the cycles of nature and/or the needs of babies who cannot speak in order to be successful. He contrasts this with working in "artificial systems" such as academia or politics. People who understand "natural systems" have an edge in understanding how the universe works. Bluffing works better in artificial than in natural systems. Attractive, but erroneous, ideas are quickly exposed in natural systems but may retain respect in an artificial system for a long time. This can allow problems to build up longer than they would in a natural system. Reality can be displaced by wishful thinking without too much difficulty in an artificial system.

Most people in our culture spend a lot of time in "artifical systems" - especially those who spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games, for example. People substitute short, on-line contacts for time with people, or post messages "to the world". There are some real advantages to "being connected" in the digital world. But balance is in order. Lack of focus on the non-digital world may reduce our ability to understand what is "real".

I like this post concerning Amish proverbs. If there's any group of people in America who still live in a mostly-natural system, it's the Amish. Proverbs mean something to them. Most of the rest of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about proverbs nowadays. We're too busy. Maybe we need a few Amish proverbs to bring us back to earth once in a while. Think about some of those proverbs and how they might apply to your life.

Jumping for joy is good exercise.

Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

A task takes as long as it takes.

At Stake Conference yesterday, one of the speakers recited her mother's favorite saying (or proverb, if you will):

Knowing is not doing.

This seems to me to be a proverb well-suited to the modern world. We know a lot of important things. But we are distracted by even more things. We distract ourselves from doing what we know is important. I have a suspicion that the Amish don't have as much need for this proverb as some of the rest of us do. Some people in the modern world have learned how to lessen the distractions in their lives. I'm still working on this.

In personal news, we learned Saturday that David's early retirement papers have been processed. A little less worry for us. We've been too distracted by the drama of David's whole irrational work situation. Time to get back to some activities which are a little more grounded in reality. Keira suggested pouring a small commemorative slab of concrete somewhere in the yard to mark the occasion.

For people who are newly unemployed or who are still really worried about future income, one of my favorite thinkers, Richard Fernandez, has some practical, low-cost tips for staying connected and approaching job-seeking on the web. Because it's hard for people who have had "real" jobs to get a new job without entering the digital world nowadays. Unless maybe they're Amish.

I went to Jathisa's wedding yesterday afternoon. She looked as pretty as I've ever seen her. Families were happy. Friends were happy. That's the way we like weddings.

We heard that little Julia is out of the hospital following possible H1N1 flu, which was a big relief. Still praying for friends and family struggling with illness.

My connection with "natural systems": Our late plums and early pomegranates. Also some remarkable bug photos.

Valentine Hearts

It's Valentine's Day. David gave me lovely gifts in anticipation a couple of days ago, one a big red heart. But I've got a blue heart this morning, and so has he. I am disheartened with bureaucracy and government at the moment. On a better note, here's how Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong handled the Blues. They say that playing Blues and similar melancholy music, then gradually brightening the mood of the music, can help lift your mood. Maybe I'll try it.

Update: O.K. Try these in sequence for mood-lifting: How Deep is the Ocean, My Funny Valentine and Side by Side.

Valentine's Day Thought from Wretchard:

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Below, a sweet and schmaltzy poem from the comments. It's the thought that counts. Truly.

Daughters are special. Having a daughter makes a man feel like he accomplished something. I wrote this for my daughter a few Valentine’s Days ago, and offer it here to all Belmont Clubbers fortunate enough to be fathers of daughters.

TO MY DAUGHTER, ON SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY
The dawning paints the night sky pink

With rose and amber hue

To look at it I have to think

The morning loves you too.


The rising sun climbs in the sky

Too bright for us to view

Another reason I know why

The noontime loves you too.


As sunset draws the curtain low

And sky turns dusk from blue

I ken full well that this I know

The evening loves you too.


And as I trundle off to bed

I think always of you

And count the thousand times I’ve said

Your father loves you too.

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day

Walt Erickson

Thanks, Walt, for being a loving Dad. From a daughter who misses her own Dad.

Some Progress in the New Year

It was great to see one of our favorite missionaries, back from Europe after plane delays, in church last week. It was also delightful to see members of his family whom we haven't seen for some time and to watch his nieces and nephews singing together in an extraordinarily harmonious group of 17 cousins.

This week, we saw several friends we had missed for a while at our Munch and Mingle after church. Three potluck items in chocolate this week. I was surprised at the popularity of our simple cheese and crackers, given the competition from other tempting offerings. We also took ham and marinated broccoli salad.

We heard great messages yesterday on coping with adversity and on the importance of testimony and consistency in study and prayer. For those thinking about a serious scripture study program this year, The Anchoress has reviewed an interesting aid to study of the New Testament.

In other "studying news", Keira has started listening to the audiobook I gave her for Christmas and remarked that it took her a while to figure out how to listen to it, because of its intellectual depth. David and I are having a somewhat similar experience.

After a difficult day in a trying week, David and I began listening to the unabridged audio of the "7 Habits" a week ago Saturday. We're still slogging toward something resembling New Years Resolutions.

Stephen R. Covey's reading voice is very engaging, and we enjoyed listening to an entire CD straight through. I got the feeling that he was speaking to me, personally. But the book is packed with meaty ideas, and sometimes I wanted to go back and think about some of these ideas before moving on. The unabridged audio would probably be more effective for most people along with, not instead of, the book. Our friend Elias seemed to do well last year studying the CDs alone, without ever having read the book. But he has far more background in theology and psychology than the average person.

Each CD has several clearly identifiable tracks so that you can skim a section of the book before listening (paying particular attention to illustrations, graphs and charts), mark the book while listening or study the book after listening. David and I have different learning styles, and we're going to have to experiment a little to find the best way to study the book together. The CDs provide a handy format for a regular study program lasting a few minutes each session - say, as part of family home evening for several weeks. The unabridged audio is also available as a download. Don't know how well the download would lend itself to group study.

For listening where you can't give your undivided attention or for group study which wouldn't require such a long-term commitment, I would recommend this 3-disc CD set. It was well-produced and personalizes some of the ideas in the book without following it particularly closely. It comes with a little study booklet. It places particular emphasis on issues of interpersonal trust. Part of it is in seminar format, and there are also comments from people other than Covey. There's an audio CD or download in Spanish of about the same length, but I don't know if the content is the same.

I accidentally ran into a couple of quotes from Stephen R. Covey while trying to look up a quote by a French intellectual of yesteryear. The first quote from Covey is directly relevant to the first audio CD we listened to last week, regarding our perceptions and the necessity of putting first things first:

"Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves objective."

The second quote is easier to remember:

"Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb."

As this song reminds us, "love isn't someplace that we fall, it's something that we do." Not that the feeling of "falling in love" doesn't have it's place. But love you fall into may not be particularly deep or even healthy. Covey was talking about a different kind of "love - the feeling - ", I think.

Brother Large

Yesterday, Brother Smith brought Brother Large with him to speak at church. Brother Large is 84 years old and 5'4". But, as he says, he could be 5'1", so he is "large". He has a large heart, anyway. And he is in good shape.

When I started playing the prelude music, he came over and stood by me, watching my hands in fascination, as if it were a miracle that I could play the organ. And I guess it really is, when you think about it: all those parts of the body and mind working together. It was no concert performance. I wasn't even using foot pedals.
or natural pipes. Still, it reminded me to be grateful for the marvelous abilities that we have as human beings.

He spoke on the theme, "Behold, what I the Lord have done". More miracles.

Brother Smith reminded us of ways we should be thinking about others as Christmas approaches, and repeated a famous quotation which I need to remember:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That's why they call it THE PRESENT.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

(emphasis Brother Smith's)

After our meetings were over, Brother Large gave all the women who were sitting in the room a brotherly kiss on the forehead. We all appreciated this little token of brotherly love on the Sunday before Christmas.

Christmas Eve Update: speaking of marvelous abililities . . .

Confucius: "morals and art will deteriorate"

“If language is not correct . . . . . . morals and art will deteriorate":

Many years ago I went through an art exhibition at a glitzy mall in Newport Beach. I remember two of the art exhibits. One was a model wearing one of those iconic French Maid outfits - the short black, form-fitting dress with the little white apron and cap. But the model (perhaps the artist) was a rather tall man who also wore black tights, some really ugly black and white gym shoes and a gas mask. The other memorable exhibit featured wall hangings which exploited the various textures and colors of lint removed from clothes dryers.

I think there was some sort of environmental message intended by both of these art pieces, but I'm not sure what it was.

There are at this moment in history a lot of "artists" on the Left delivering political messages through "art". Relatively few on the Right, most of them
satirists pointing out rhetorical or other excesses on the Left. Moe Lane compares Australian Green protesters (dignified by American standards) to performance art. I can imagine myself in the audience. He says
about the second photo in this post:

". . . it looks for all the world like a snapshot of a particularly boring and pretentious piece of performance art. You know the kind that I’m talking about; one featuring three or four people moving about and talking aimlessly while atonal, yet annoying, stringed instruments play in the background. You’re there because your S.O.’s friend is involved with the production, and you have been promised that the party afterward will not be dull - so you spend the time trying to decipher the program, which reads like it was translated from German to English via Academic Marxist, with a quick stopover at Martian. You suspect that it has gained in the translation; meanwhile, up on the stage someone has just waved a broomstick at a man wearing a cow suit, which apparently has something to do with the Falkland Islands War.

It is about that time that you grimly conclude that the party afterward will be dull."

Hyperbole on the part of Australian Greens has reduced the tendency of the general population to pay attention to the Global Warming Issue. Particularly since the Australian contribution to greenhouse gasses is so tiny compared to, say, China's growing emissions. But the Greens still have the attention of the news media - just like in America. This may be one reason why political "performance art" gets more and more extreme while serious, fact-based discussions of issues go unnoticed.

Confucius and Clarity of Language

Confucius said:

“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion.

Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”

The translation above makes me wonder how the end of a sentence is indicated in Chinese. That's some first sentence. We're really not used to long sentences these days. I put in a paragraph separation just to make the quote easier to get through.

The piece from which this quote was taken makes some over-broad statements about government spending. But it includes some really good points about how people have been misled about government money. Click on the link at the bottom of the page for comments from readers which reveal some of the ways government involvement tends to make everything more expensive while sometimes making stuff seem "free". David could tell many similar stories. Money from government allows corrupt or astonishingly inefficient systems - public or private - to survive much longer than they would if they had to earn their own money.

Dr. Helen has some interesting advice concerning how teachers can help their students think critically and clearly understand some of the ways propaganda works:

" . . . in my opinion, it is not your job to decide the politics of the students in your class, it is your job to expose them to the critical thinking skills that will help them make informed decisions and back them up in a reasoned way. This is what is sorely lacking in our present educational system."

Did you know that there was a Propaganda Game ? Some non-PC books for kids would also help provide some balance to the liberal mindset which filters down from our higher education system.

Cub Scout Jokes

Shaun: What do you do with a blue elephant?
Pedro: Tell me.
Shaun: Cheer it up.

Shaun: What do you call Australian boxer shorts?
Peter: I haven't a clue.
Shaun: Down-underwear

Shaun Wolf, Rockford, MI

My favorite:

If at first you don't succeed,
Skydiving is not for you.

Gabriel Laska, Marshall, Ill.

Living Life Every Day

Blogger Dean Barnett has died of Cystic Fibrosis. He was one of those people who made the most of life even in the face of tremendous challenges. He wasn't shy about taking on an intellectual argument. But he also wrote a tribute to a Lefty blogger with whom he deeply disagreed when the latter died last year, also at the age of 41. Dean Barnett looked at his challenges head-on and moved forward in a realistic way, appreciating both the big and the little things which came his way each day.

I've met two other people recently who strike me in the same way. David and I talked recently with a local pastor who had a near-death experience in a diving accident which made him a paraplegic and an instant Christian. He is currently running for City Council, with considerable help from his brother, other relatives and friends.

I also met one of the Hoggard's neighbors, a woman who has severe arthritis of a rare form which is fusing her spine and deforming her body. Her hips were both replaced when she was relatively young. She and her husband adopted a little girl from overseas a few years ago. The girl, now 8, is the focus of a lot of love. Her mom also keeps busy volunteering for the Catholic church. She speaks with great enthusiasm about her life, even expressing gratitude for her disability.

A former neighbor of ours, Mrs. Rambo the "garden lady", similarly made me feel good just being around her. She also had debilitating pain in her spine. She and her husband had lost their only daughter when she was just a girl. I lost track of her when she went into a nursing home near an "adopted" - unrelated - niece in Tulare. She fought the move as long as she could. Her little house is just not the same without all the exuberant flowers she tended there. She made a difference in my life. She radiated both gratitude and a kind of determination to live a fulfilling life. She "thrilled" at the sound of a rooster crowing, as it reminded her of ranch life. She took joy in every flower in her garden and every person she knew.

Dennis Prager interviewed his mother for the first time on his Happiness Hour last Friday. It was her birthday. She and her husband look forward to each day, ignoring the aches and pains of age. She provided some fascinating insights into life in the past as an Orthodox Jew in New York City. Things have really changed. She thinks she was "born happy", though she has had several challenges - a deaf mother and the murder of a grandfather, for example.

Dennis' old friend Father Gregory called to speak with her. His call reminded me of the old days when Dennis moderated the "Religion on the Line" radio program in Los Angeles. The clergy got along with each other remarkably well, laughed together and supported each other despite their theological differences. There was a core set of values which they shared and which they helped each other express to listeners. They also seemed to be a notably grateful group of people.

Wretchard put a note of gratitude and comfort into his post on Dean Barnett's death. It could apply to many other people we cherish and are grateful for, and probably even to to my difficulty in throwing away old things which have meaning to me:

"Sometimes relatives put off cleaning out the room or packing up the effects of the deceased because it almost seems as if they’ll come back. Just you wait.

The time to clean up comes when we realize that even memory is not necessary for love. Nothing is futile. Just you wait."

Limerick about Limericks

From Jay Nordlinger, National Review:

There once was a poet named Todd
Whose meter was seriously flawed.
His limericks would tend
To come to an end
Suddenly.

Cautionary quotes

From The Anchoress, in reference to socialized medicine, but much more widely applicable:

"American presidents may peacefully surrender their power, but bureaucrats never do."



Related quote from the comments, attribution fuzzy:

"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait til it's free."


Especially if you consider both health costs and fiscal costs. Socialized medicine in many countries is now degrading due to the accumulated weight of years of bureaucracy, among other things. Some countries, such as the UK and Canada, seem to do especially poorly now with chronic medical conditions. There is a lottery in one Canadian town for appointments to see the General Practitioner.

Good comments on the linked posts.

A quote which caught my fancy

Back when his personal blog Pejmanesque was active, Pejman Yousefzadeh (an Iranian Jewish name) used to post a "quote of the day". His personal blog got to be too much, and he replaced it with a group blog , where he sometimes posts "quotes that catch my fancy". Here's one from Thomas Sowell which caught my fancy today:

The recent death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn should make us recall what he said when he was awarded the Nobel Prize: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."