Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Cheese/Pumpkin


It is truly a gift to know what you want. To be consistent in your likes and desires (not in a sense of excluding those things which you may not like, but rather a confidence in the things that you do) can make some of life’s decisions much simpler. When I asked my daughter what she wanted her pumpkin to look like there was no hesitation; “cheese.” Cheese is one of her favorite things (especially orange cheese) so I suppose it just seemed obvious that her pumpkin should be carved to represent something she likes. It was just as simple for her when asked what kind of birthday party she wanted to have; “orange” and she has already decided on “white” for her three year old party. If only every decision we make could be this simple. “This is what I like, there is no need for it to be something else, so this is what it will be.” Maybe most of our decisions probably should or at least could be that simple. It’s not a question of denying variety or of avoiding new things, it’s a question of finding that thing which you truly love or which you enjoy and letting that love or joy be your guide.

I get that there are often extenuation circumstances and external influences and I am in favor of change and new things, but so often if something seems good and right we need to give our selves permission to just go with it. At times this kind of thinking creates the need to ask forgiveness and the simple becomes complicated, but other times a pumpkin that looks like cheese is just right.
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seriously

The most persuasive argument is often made by the one who is able to be serious and deal with serious things without taking them self too seriously. I think this is the appeal of shows like The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Every once in a while they may cross the line, but even those who may disagree can listen to them in a more open way because of the way they present things. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti was on The Daily Show tonight and while I admit that to even go on The Daily Show you have to have a sense of humor, what I appreciated was that he was addressing a serious issue that clearly holds deep personal meaning for him, but he could genuinely laugh it off when someone in the audience called him a liar and even sincerely offer to talk with the person one on one. He even made a joke about Mickey Mouse. I don’t really want to talk about the points he made or even the issue of Israel and Palestine, what I want to take note of is the way he talked about it. In dealing with any polarizing issue you really do have to be able to sometimes disassociate or find some way of easing your own tension. If you can’t, you run the risk of getting so caught up that you can’t hear any voice that does not sound like your own. We have to be able to not only hear, but dialog with those who disagree with us otherwise we get no where. It gives me hope to see anyone, especially leaders who have the willingness to listen, the ability to respect and the desire to engage. Those who are willing to debate in the highest and most sincere way and to maybe even change their minds for the good of the people are the ones we need.

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the parts and the whole

The tea shop in town has a pineapple carrot cake that I enjoy a piece of every couple of weeks. Today I got a piece on the way to the park with Ainsley so we could share a snack while we played off our excess energy for the day. When we took a break from testing every apparatus at the park to see if it was still the same as it was the day before, we bit into our treat and enjoyed the combination of flavors as the moist cake melted in our mouths. After a couple of bites Ainsley asked, “what’s in it?” Ainsley loves to help cook things and she has an insatiable curiosity so this question wasn’t exactly a surprise. The surprise came when after the first ingredient I listed (pineapple) her response was, “I don’t like pineapple.” I have never heard her say she didn’t like pineapple before, but the part that got me thinking was that she liked the cake despite of the things in it which by themselves she may not like. I don’t like walnuts, I don’t like eggs, and I am not really even all that fond of carrots, but I like the cake too and all of those things are in it. I could do without the walnuts, but otherwise it really is good.

The thought however was not about the food, my thought was about how often we can fail to appreciate something because we get distracted by the parts. Rarely do we find something that we can truly say we like every thing about it or them, but if we can focus on the whole, perhaps we can appreciate the parts which go into it. If you love someone that doesn’t mean that you like every little detail about them, but what you love is how everything about them comes together to make them who they are.
That part sounds great, but what happens when we use the same logic applied to other things (beyond love and food that is)? Is it the same concept as “the ends justify the means?” Are we supposed to appreciate or at least get past all the parts that go into a positive outcome because the outcome really is good? I guess that’s the problem when we take a metaphor about a piece of cake too far.
Reality is somewhere in between. The parts do matter, but so does the whole and sometimes we have to look at things both ways.
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Awkwardness

Aside from the fact that “awkward” is an awkward word, I was confronted today by an awkwardness that occurs far too often. I took my daughter to an indoor play space where usually she is able to see some of her friends, but today there were only a few kids there and she didn’t know any of them. The strange awkwardness I felt was I as followed her around the room (at her request) I walked by the other parent’s and kids and though we acknowledged each other’s presence it was like some barrier prevented us from actually talking to each other. I am not an extravert, though I often play one in my life, so I will own some responsibility for the awkwardness, but introvert or not once I actually pondered the situation I couldn’t help but feel silly. How often do we find ourselves in situations like this? The kids didn’t seem to notice though they kind of ignored each other too it wasn’t so obvious and there were no pretensions, they were just too busy doing their own thing. It’s funny to me because I find myself willing to talk to strangers in situations where I have more reasons not too, but here I was in a group that shares an affinity- we have kids in the same age group and we are living on an island together where I am fairly well known and it took me nearly twenty minutes to say hello and introduce myself. I am not sure why, perhaps it would be a good study to attempt to explain awkwardness, but I also have a feeling that it’s awkward because there is no reason for it. I did eventually speak up and start a conversation, but it couldn’t erase the vestiges of the barrier that like a cloud still separated us.

I suppose this falls into the category of “wouldn’t it be nice if…” but I find myself instead wondering what awkwardness teaches us. Apprehension, fear and even anger have a way of motivating us or protecting us, so maybe awkwardness can do the same. Maybe the answer is to always ask why and the opportunity is to move beyond it or retreat into it. Either way I guess that until or unless awkwardness seises to exist we may as well learn from it and I feel a sort of calling to find ways of removing it where ever I can (starting with my self).
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The kindness of strangers

With a 35lb wiggly two year old in one hand and an umbrella in the other I walked in the driving rain to preschool this morning while dressed in my nicest slacks and black leather shoes as I mentally prepared for the funeral that I would be presiding at in just an hours time. The walk is probably not much more than a quarter mile and I prefer not to drive anywhere that I can walk to, but today I had considered it. About halfway to the school I saw a man in a silver VW golf pull over and start backing towards us. I didn’t recognize the car or as it turned out the man inside it, but it was clear that he was pulling over to talk to me. As I pulled even with him he rolled his window down and offered us a ride to where ever we needed to get to. I was touched and inspired by this stranger who saw us getting quite wet despite the umbrella and offered to help. I declined since we were only about one hundred feet from our destination, but I thanked him profusely for stopping and offering to keep us dry.

A couple of years ago when my eldest (is seems funny to refer to her as that since I sometime still can’t believe I have another daughter who I hope will come home from the hospital soon) was born I wrote an article for the local news paper about how babies bring out the best in people. People smile more and traffic comes to a halt when a person with a stroller wants to cross the street, but today I don’t think it was because I was carrying the cutest two year old on the planet that this man stopped. I think he stopped because he saw someone who might need his help and he had the means to help. It made me think about how great the world would be if we all did the same. Imagine a world where everyone who sees someone in need and who has the means to help is willing to stop, even if just for a moment, and offer what they could, what a world that could be. Not everyone would take the help and not everyone we think is in need is actually in need, but I believe that even the offer effects us. To encounter the willingness to help can be more powerful than the help itself.
I believe that all people have in them the kindness that the man in the silver golf had, but it’s nice when people are willing to let it out.
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A Second Bill of Rights-FDR

Yesterday afternoon I went to see Michael Moore’s new film “Capitalism: A Love Story.” I found it only slightly ironic that a movie critiquing capitalism was showing at one of our great edifices to it; the shopping mall, but in reality that is not the side of capitalism that Moore was focusing on. I feel like I could write a dozen or so blogs about the things brought up in this film (or at least the things that made me think about other things while seeing it). Perhaps I will, but for now I want to lift up just one very significant piece where he highlighted a speech made by FDR in January of 1944. In that speech FDR called for a second bill of rights that included:

“The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.” (as found on http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/econrights/fdr-econbill.html)

As I heard these being read by President Roosevelt I couldn’t help but think of other similar lists of rights like the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/) which came just four years after FDR’s speech or the Millennium Development goals (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/), the list of lists goes on and on including the Social Creed of my own denomination which in 1908 called for many of the same rights.

“1908 Social Creed The Methodist Episcopal Church stands –

For equal rights and complete justice for all (people) in all stations of life.

For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions.

For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, injuries and mortality.

For the abolition of child labor.

For such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safe guard the physical and moral health of the community.

For the suppression of the “sweating system.”

For the gradual and reasonable reduction of hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life.

For a release from employment one day in seven.

For a living wage in every industry.

For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.

For the recognition of the Golden Rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills.”


The problem is that these lists of rights are just that, lists of rights. How many people have even heard of them, much less read through them? And more to the point, who is doing anything to make them a reality and not just a really nice goal to have “someday.” According to the agreement made by all member nations of the UN the “Universal Declaration” was/is supposed to be “disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.” Is that happening? The front page of the Millennium Goals website talks about the gap in support where countries are failing to live up to their pledges. How can there be a greater priority than that of human rights?

I know that there are good things going on in the world and good people working to make the world better. I know that each one of these lists has well intentioned people behind it and the hope of becoming a reality. I also know that each of us could do more than we are and I know that not enough people know. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has had a public service campaign entitled “The More Your Know” for the past 20 years and I think their goal is a good one: to let people know what they can do.


Sir Francis Bacon said that, “Knowledge itself is power.” I believe that the more you learn the less likely you are to stand by without doing something and the more likely you are to stand up when your own rights are being infringed upon. I have had the privilege to teach about social justice here in my own country and abroad and watch as the lights go on in someone’s eyes as they begin to see themselves as a person of worth, a person who has rights. Just imagine if everyone had that light in them; darkness, evil and oppression could not exist.

People need to know and people need to act.

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Short Cuts

I was out for a run the other day and it just wasn’t going well. My legs felt heavy and perhaps in the back of my mind I was lamenting my lost glory days and briefly allowing myself to dwell on the fact that at least in this I am but a shadow of my former self. As I ran I began to think of corners I could cut and short cuts I could take (no one would know but me, but then again no one would care but me either). The funny thing is that my thought process lead me into a deeper place of reflection on short cuts in general and somehow the running got easier so I ended up runner further in stead of actually taking a short cut.

I am not in favor of doing things the hard way, but I don’t appreciate taking the easy way out either. In math for instance, we often seek the short cuts and I just saw a man on TV who is called the “human calculator” because he has perfected the short cut. As I think back on it though I will never forget the lecture I received from my uncle (the math teacher) about the beauty of showing all your work and appreciating a well thought out proof. I was reminded of this lecture the other day as I watched “The Big Bang Theory” where for several minutes they depicted a montage of two physicists staring at a mathematical formula for days (all set to music of course) and I suppose I realized that everything else perception is in the eyes of the beholder. For the person who loves math they can appreciate both the short cut and the long way as much for the ingenuity and creativity it took to come up with the short cut as they do the way it simplifies things and still want to look at it both ways (just for fun). I run and I rarely take the short cut because I am running to run, not to get somewhere faster.
If you can do something better and faster most of the time you should, but sometimes the journey matters more than how you get there and I can respect that too. In life I like to do most things fast, but in my daily living I appreciate the little moments and almost never hurry. My hope is that we don’t miss something in the rush and at the same time can be thoughtful enough to remove the obstacles that don’t need to be there.
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The Artistry of God

On an evening run at sunset my first thought was to burst into the song, “Sunrise Sunset,” but my second thought was about how incredible this universe is. If there is ever any doubt that God is an artist all one needs to do is look to the heavens. I have had the privilege to see sunsets paint the mountains in every shade of purple and pink and to watch over the vastness of the oceans as the sun grows impossibly large and then falls off the end of the earth. I have seen the sunrise paint the dense green of a forest with its golden hues and bring out the most dazzling colors that can even make a dirt road look beautiful under a canopy of leaves and light. I have looked to the heavens in a place where our light is not allowed to diminish God’s and I been awed by the shear number of the stars above glowing in the immensity of the universe. I have walked through snowy fields bathed in the reflection of the northern lights, the aurora borealis, a splash of every color dancing in the dark cold sky.

In every instance I can’t help but wonder how different the world might be if every person in it took the time to admire the artistry of God in these moments that happen every day. You don’t have to be in the forest or at the ocean or in a remote northern field to appreciate the glory of creation, but you do have to be willing to look up and recognize the artist who made us all.
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Making Mountains

My daughter has this thing about making mountains. In the yard she finds dirt or even grass, but today it was sand at the beach. I am not sure where she got the idea, but somehow today I saw it as something more than a child’s game. Today she made mountains for each of the people she loves and then proceeded to dismantle them. it made me think of the mountains that we build for ourselves. On the one hand, we set goals that become our mountains to climb. These are good mountains so long as we are willing to either make the effort reach them and to keep them in sight or if we are willing to set them aside as something we no longer need. I actually think this kind of mountain is critical to avoiding a kind of complacency that leads to a life without goals. Unfortunately i also think there are too many people who are so afraid of not reaching them that they refuse to set goals or who are too afraid to go after what they really want, so the mountain remains something they simply look at from time to time as something beautiful, but too far off to reach. I guess i don’t believe in the unclimbable mountain and for me the joy of life is in both the attempt and the achievements of reaching our own personal summits.

On the other hand there are also the mountains we build up as obstacles to our achievements, the ones that obscure our view of the promised lands beyond and which we use as excuses. I suppose it was these mountains I was thinking of as I watched my daughter demonstrate how easy it was to both build them up and to dismantle them. it was as if she was showing me something in her two year old insight about our ability to overcome and the power we possess in our freedom.
We spend our lives making mountains and it’s up to us whether we see them as exciting goals to reach for or as the unattainable which stands in the way of what we really want. I think we need more mountain climbers in this world and I for one am always looking for the next one to climb.
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The things I never learned

I am most thankful for the things that I did not learn as a child and refuse to accept as an adult. I did not learn to be fearful of anything and so fear has rarely held me back. I did not learn that failure means I am not good enough and that gives me the confidence to try again. I did not learn to mistrust first and that has allowed me to see the good in people. I did not learn to simply accept things as they are and it’s made me willing to question and to work for positive change. I did not learn to doubt myself and that’s made me confident enough to stand up and to deal with adversity. I did not learn just one way of thinking and that gave me the tools to discover how to think instead of just what to think. I did not learn to hate and that only left the option to love. It may be strange to think this way, but I am more concerned sometimes with making sure my daughter doesn’t learn those things than I am with what she does. I think that once you learn something it’s pretty hard to unlearn it and children pick up on everything they see. If we don’t stop hating, if we don’t stop mistrusting, if we live in fear, If we doubt ourselves, and if we simply accept things as they are then the next generation will learn to do those things too. For me the best way to avoid those things is to never teach them in the first place. I am a seeker of knowledge, but I am very glad for those things I never learned.