Warnings or Prophecies?

What would you say if I told you that two well respected American military commanders gave grave warnings against the buildup of military forces in America? What if I explained that both of these men went on to become President of the United States? And what if I then told you that these two men were George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower? Would you believe what they had to say? Two of our greatest generals and most beloved presidents warned this nation of the potential dangers to the Union should we allow the military to become too powerful in this country. Interestingly, both warnings came in the form of a farewell address to the nation as they left the office of president. These warnings have consistently been ignored over the past fifty years with the result being a constant state of armed conflict across the globe to protect American "interests".

Fortunately, it appears that someone actually listened to Ike when he insisted, "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together". Eugene Jarecki's recent documentary, Why We Fight, explores some of the reasons why America has been involved in so many conflicts over the past fifty to sixty years. Jarecki's narrative begins with Eisenhower's farewell address in which he stated that "unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex" could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes". The full weight of this prophesy has only recently been realized with such legislation as the Patriot Act, and congress's resolution giving the president unprecedented authority to wage war at his discretion. Jarecki's narrative becomes powerful as he intertwines Eisenhower's words with C-SPAN footage of congress's resolution. The cause and effect can clearly be seen.

Key differences exist, however, between Eisenhower's address, Washington's address and Jarecki's documentary. Washington was the most extreme of the three, warning the people quite sternly of the dangers of even holding a standing national army. He studied the many armed conflicts that continued to spring up in Europe over the previous two thousand years. Drawing from this knowledge of military history and his own experiences in both the French-Indian War and American Revolution, Washington beseeches the people to "avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty". Eisenhower acknowledged the necessity of a strong military establishment to both deter future threat and protect from imminent dangers in a modern world. Jarecki's narrative only shows the extreme lengths to which the military-industrial complex will go to subvert democracy and generate a continuing state of war.

Jarecki edits out some of the more compelling arguments Eisenhower makes for balance in the military, focusing his attention almost exclusively on Ike's warning against the overreaching buildup of military forces. While this selective quoting favors Jarecki's documentary of the consequences of military excess and collusion with government and industry, it does disservice to both Eisenhower and Jarecki's argument. Susan King, writing for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Jarecki for her article "Warnings of War". She writes, "[Jarecki] says he's passing Eisenhower's warnings on to Americans 'so they can take stock and be vigilant to the dangers to our democracy implicit in the military-industrial complex and more broadly in the kind of imperial direction that this country is heading'". What he conveniently glazes over is Eisenhower's firm belief that a strong military would be necessary to protect America in a modern world. It may be that Jarecki feels the argument for a strong military has been made time and time again in our culture over the past fifty years and does not need to be rehashed. However, the absence of these parts of Eisenhower's speech from the documentary tended to give the entire film an anti-military, anti-industry slant. Clearly, Eisenhower was not either of these.

I found some of the economic comments and Eisenhower's warnings against the federalization of scholarly activities compelling. One powerful line from Ike's address in particular finds itself dropped on Jarecki's editing room floor: "We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations". Jarecki portrays another of Eisenhower's speeches that puts in very finite terms the cost of modern warfare:

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine fully equipped hospitals. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Bruce Kauffmann finds the same resonant message of balance in Eisenhower's address in his recent article "'Ike' got it right in farewell address; He knew how the U.S. military fit in the world". Published in the Telegraph – Herald, Kauffmann points out, "A careful reading of this address reveals that Eisenhower's remarks were actually quite balanced". He further explains, "What really concerned Eisenhower was that America was entering uncharted territory with respect to the size of the military and its influence on national life and its cost". The material cost of war has only increased since 1961.

I find it extremely fascinating that two of the clearest military critics were two of its most esteemed and famous generals. We have ignored, as a society, two of our greatest military minds, two of America's greatest heroes, and we pay the price daily in American blood, world respect, and economic stability. Perhaps Eugene Jarecki provides us with no solutions to this apparent problem in foreign policy because no clear solutions readily present themselves.

I commend Mr. Jarecki for attempting to follow the legacy of George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower and educate the citizens who must make informed choices and act upon them if we are to back away from this precipice of self-destruction we are currently rushing headlong toward. I fear his work may be too little, too late. When will the price of war become too high even for Americans to bear? Unfortunately, the defense industry now dominates our economy and industrial base. Weapons are one of the few remaining hard goods America still manufactures domestically. A reduction in defense spending now will almost assuredly lead to recession, perhaps even full-blown depression. And if it does, we deserve it. We failed to listen to the voices of reason in our own country. Economic decline may be the only way this country will awake from its war-induced stupor and recognize how far we have strayed, as a culture, from the values of our founding fathers.

Are we even asking the right questions?

Raymond Kurzweil, inventor of the Kurzweil electric piano and renowned thinker, believes that, with the aide of genetic engineering and nanorobotics, man might achieve immortality in his own lifetime. Simultaneously bounding with possibilities for good and evil, genetic technology raises some critical socio-ethical questions over who should control both the knowledge and application of a technology that promises, according to Kurzweil, to usher in the next phase of human evolution on earth. Perhaps another question needs to be answered first: should mankind even be allowed to possess this technology?

Some of the greatest technological advancements in human history have been used as instruments of oppression, war, and death. Some modern examples include nuclear, demolition, and biochemical technologies. One of the earliest genetic researchers was Dr. Josef Mengele, the now-infamous Nazi physician at the Auschwitz death camp. Where will we draw the line with regards to acceptable application of genetic and cloning technology? Will the rewards of using the technology outweigh the costs? Scientists may cure diseases and severe injury with this technology, but it may also be used by less noble minds as a twenty-first century ethnic cleansing. Instead of killing the ethnic minorities, their genetic diversity will be removed, quietly, from all future generations of children. After fifty years, ethnic cleansing is completed forever.

These questions must be answered before any particular argument for or against cloning and genetic technology moves me to its cause. I fear these questions may require more time to answer than the development of the actual technologies. If that happens, any decisions we may come to as a people could already be too late.

I yell at the refs

The air has grown grisp, the skies are drifting toward gloom, turkey day is around the corner and that all means...FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh it's here, baby. Oh yes, it's truly, truly football season now. The BCS is simultaneously shaping up, and from what I can tell, there's a lot of people who are ready to just ship it out. I'm one of them. I've always been an advocate of a NCAA Football Tournament. College football needs a playoff to decide a true national champion. The conferences have all come up in play over the past ten years, the Pac-10, ACC, and Big-12 being most notable. There's just too many great teams out there these days to let a bunch of computers, some coaches, and the media crown a national champion. Times have changed, so needs the NCAA. They've done a tremendous marketing job with the men's college basketball tournament, March Madness, the Final Four, and so on. Great job, now time to turn your eye toward a football tournament.

Security or SECURE(minor)ITY?

What price would you pay for security? Is it more just to punish the innocent for the sake of the guilty or free the guilty for the sake of the innocent? Mankind has asked these questions since he first collected in social units. One of the oldest stories in the Bible shows Abraham literally haggling with God to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if but ten righteous people lived in the population. All societies struggle to find the best answer for these questions.

Michelle Malkin seems particularly interested in tackling these and similar questions in her new book In Defense of Internment, an investigation into World War II internment camps in America. I am very pleased to see the mainstream media posing questions about the balance between civil liberty and national security. We both desire to live in a country that is free and safe. Even more pleasing is her decision to investigate the American internment camps during World War II, a topic too rarely examined in the American consciousness. I sincerely hope that her book, and the facts that she presents, will spark a debate in the public forum on how and why we detain people during wartime.

I concede that the government was attempting to protect both their military assets and civilians on the west coast during this time. There were numerous attacks on the U.S. and Canadian homeland during the months after Pearl Harbor and leading up to the internment of Japanese and Europeans. The government feared imminent invasion of North American by the Japanese during 1942. However, I believe justice and personal liberty are among the most important and cherished values of our society. The Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I also agree with Benjamin Franklin when he asserted, "that it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer."

Innocent Americans, Japanese, and Europeans suffered during their relocation to American internment camps in World War II. Many lost property that was never fully recovered, if recovered at all. I want to live in a safe America just like Michelle Malkin, and I do agree that the government has a responsibility to protect its people, both from external and internal threat. I am also certain, though, that we can find alternative methods of protecting ourselves that do not require the government to suspend the rights that so many brave men and women have fought and died to secure for over two hundred years.

One

I find it interesting at times how our decisions in life, especially in the areas of language and identity, can have very different effects within our social groups. The language I use puts one group at ease and divides me against another. I suppose there will never be a time when a person can be at perfect peace and harmony with all they come in contact with. I think it is for this reason I rather despise political correctness. Honestly, is there really any sense in attempting to avoid conflict and offense? At some point, everyone makes decisions that define their own identity and that, in turn, creates acceptance within some social groups and conflict within others.

A perfect example of this dynamic tension can be found in the film version of Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One. Peekay’s ability to speak all the major languages of South Africa creates a greater respect and acceptance among the Africans while simultaneously creating mistrust and dividing him against the Afrikaners. Despite his attempts to walk the tightrope of social acceptance between both cultures, neither the Afrikaners nor the Africans allow him neutrality. In the end, he is forced to make difficult decisions and choose which culture he will stand with and be counted among.

At the beginning of the film, Peekay is taught that he is English by his mother. This identity, not one of his own making but one given him by blood, quickly creates problems for Peekay as he enters an Afrikaner school. Tormented by his peers because of his ethnicity, Peekay does not succumb to self hatred and guilt but rises above to create for himself a new identity. With the help of Dabula Manzi, a Zulu medicine man, Peekay begins to identify himself as a part of nature, outside the confines of blood and ethnicity. This perspective of seeing himself as more than merely English but recognizing himself as a force of the planet helps him transcend the racial and ethnic boundaries so many of the other characters find themselves entrapped within. This identity that transcends blood and race creates a man who finds common ground amongst many. It allows Peekay to move easily between all races and ethnicities.

This self perception finds reinforcement when Peekay leaves the Afrikaner school and begins living with Doc. Doc teaches Peekay to look to nature and the Earth for all his answers, aiding this growing universalist realization of man as a part of nature, entirely outside of tribe, color, and language. While in prison, this universalist identity begins to take true form. With the help of Geel Piet, Peekay helps the African pisoners transcend their own tribes and work together. He ends the tensions between the tribes and they work in harmony and peace for a common purpose. In the process, Peekay becomes the Rainmaker to the tribes, a mythical envoy sent by the gods to provide rain and life for all the people. It is a title that transcends tribe. Peekay’s identity as a force of nature confirmed. Never again does he allow race or tribe to dictate his actions, limit his choices. But these decisions always have consequences.

Peekay’s freedom from the confines of ethnic identity acts as a catalyst for other characters in the film. This catalyst nearly always creates conflict, however, as the people around him are awakened to the possibility of identity outside of ethnicity. For Maria, Peekay is a force of personal revelation. She realizes her own understanding of reality to be quite lacking and chooses to explore this newfound knowledge at the expense of her relationship with her own family and eventually her own life. For Duma, this freedom becomes the seed of hope he will plant within his people to help them transcend their own condition. Peekay’s freedom inspires Hoppie to act boldly in defiance of the government and culture, even going so far as to display mixed race boxers together openly on the doors of his gym, an action that gets him imprisoned and his gym burned.

Whenever a person chooses an identity independent of social normality, that person forces all those who come into contact with them to make choices about their own identity. These choices tend to have one of two outcomes, either to free that person from their own self perceptions or to push that person further into their own existing self identity. Either way, this almost inevitably creates conflict both internally to that person and externally within the social groups to which that person belongs. Liberation, in all its forms, seldom comes without conflict.

Day 10: Life is a Tree

Ever notice how life is a lot like a tree? It grounds itself deep in the earth, supported by the work of countless roots that can never be easily seen without digging up the entire tree. Like our families and those who influence us, support us and sustain us. Those who have come before us who unknowingly shaped our consciousness by their countless decisions passed down in the genetic code to help make us who we are and who we will become.

The trunk leaves the ground solid and strong and yearns for the sky, seeking the closest path to the light. Few branches leave the trunk low to the ground, much as in our childhood our choices were limited yet we had no care. The only thing that dominates our thoughts as children is reaching upward, reaching for the sky and the light and all that is to come, all we cannot perceive yet sense just beyond the horizon of our being.

As we enter into adulthood, we reach the first branches of our life and they are mighty ones with many additional branches in each direction. Their choices take us in many directions but the light is still somewhat obscured by the higher branches. We begin to catch glimpses of the sky and sun and we race ever more quickly toward the edges, the outskirts of our being, testing the strength of our trunk and the limits of our existence.

We enter middle age and find our branches growing shorter and fewer, yet the choices seem much more clear. We feel so much nearer the sky now and we can begin to make out the form of the sun quite well. We can look down at the ground and realize how high we've risen and it can be frightening at moments, especially as the wind begins to sway our trunk, grown now somewhat thinner. We begin to perceive the dangers we never believe on the lower branches. Still, the heights call and we must continue toward the light.

Toward the top of the tree, branches are very short and few, like our choices. But at those heights, the sky comes fully into view and the sun graces us with abundant life. The wind sways us, sometimes wildly, but we have such a marvelous view of all that is around us. We can see the entirety of our life stretching out below us and recognize the results of those many decisions. The climb can be weary, though, and we must content ourselves in ourselves recognizing it's far too difficult to climb back down the tree. Much easier to jump into the heavens.

Yet at every point, we are still that tree. Just something I was thinking about today.

Day 9: George MacDonald

I pulled out some of my old George MacDonald books today and was once again struck with his insight and brilliance. It's no wonder C.S. Lewis referred to him as his "master", a mentor he only once met. MacDonald influenced an entire generation of writers and certainly has had a phenomenal influence on me. I decided to post here for you his introductory essay, "The Fantastic Imagination". This essay on the nature of art and imagination and the fairytale has been like a plumbline for me in many of my writings. I hope it inspires you as it has always inspired me. Bless!

The Fantastic Imagination

by George MacDonald

Introduction from The Light Princess and other Fairy Tales, also reprinted in a Dish of Orts.

That we have in English no word corresponding to the German Märchen, drives us to use the word Fairytale, regardless of the fact that the tale may have nothing to do with any sort of fairy. The old use of the word Fairy, by Spenser at least, might, however, well be adduced, were justification or excuse necessary where need must.

Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale; then read this and that as well, and you will see what is a fairytale. Were I further begged to describe the fairytale, or define what it is, I would make answer, that I should as soon think of describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is just a face; and of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.

Many a man, however, who would not attempt to define a man, might venture to say something as to what a man ought to be: even so much I will not in this place venture with regard to the fairytale, for my long past work in that kind might but poorly instance or illustrate my now more matured judgment. I will but say some things helpful to the reading, in right-minded fashion, of such fairytales as I would wish to write, or care to read.

Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance with the laws of the world of the senses; but it must not therefore be imagined that they desire escape from the region of law. Nothing lawless can show the least reason why it should exist, or could at best have more than an appearance of life.

The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms--which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in either case, Law has been diligently at work.

His world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must hold by those laws. The moment he forgets one of them, he makes the story, by its own postulates, incredible. To be able to live a moment in an imagined world, we must see the laws of its existence obeyed. Those broken, we fall out of it. The imagination in us, whose exercise is essential to the most temporary submission to the imagination of another, immediately, with the disappearance of Law, ceases to act. Suppose the gracious creatures of some childlike region of Fairyland talking either cockney or Gascon! Would not the tale, however lovelily begun, sink once to the level of the Burlesque--of all forms of literature the least worthy? A man's inventions may be stupid or clever, but if he does not hold by the laws of them, or if he makes one law jar with another, he contradicts himself as an inventor, he is no artist. He does not rightly consort his instruments, or he tunes them in different keys. The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, therefore, can it alone work to any result. Inharmonious, unconsorting ideas will come to a man, but if he try to use one of such, his work will grow dull, and he will drop it from mere lack of interest. Law is the soil in which alone beauty will grow; beauty is the only stuff in which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her, and Fancy his journeyman that puts the pieces of them together, or perhaps at most embroiders their button-holes. Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.

In the moral world it is different: there a man may clothe in new forms, and for this employ his imagination freely, but he must invent nothing. He may not, for any purpose, turn its laws upside down. He must not meddle with the relations of live souls. The laws of the spirit of man must hold, alike in this world and in any world he may invent. It were no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things he must obey--and take their laws with him into his invented world as well.

"You write as if a fairytale were a thing of importance: must it have meaning?"

It cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will read one meaning in it, another will read another.

"If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own meaning into it, but yours out of it?"

Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than the mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to mine.

"Suppose my child ask me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"

If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology.

But indeed your children are not likely to trouble you about the meaning. They find what they are capable of finding, and more would be too much. For my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.

A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it not an allegory. He must be an artist indeed who can, in any mode, produce a strict allegory that is not a weariness to the spirit. An allegory must be Mastery or Moorditch.

A fairytale, like a butterfly or a bee, helps itself on all sides, sips every wholesome flower, and spoils not one. The true fairytale is, to my mind, very like the sonata. We all know that a sonata means something; and where there is the faculty of talking with suitable vagueness, and choosing metaphor sufficiently loose, mind may approach mind, in the interpretation of a sonata, with the result of a more or less contenting consciousness of sympathy. But if two or three men sat down to write each what the sonata meant to him, what approximation to definite idea would be the result? Little enough--and that little more than needful. We should find it had roused related, if not identical, feelings, but probably not one common thought. Has the sonata therefore failed? Had it undertaken to convey, or ought it to be expected to impart anything defined, anything notionally recognisable?

"But words are not music; words at least are meant and fitted to carry a precise meaning!"

It is very seldom indeed that they carry the exact meaning of any user of them! And if they can be so used as to convey definite meaning, it does not follow that they ought never to carry anything else. Words are live things that may be variously employed to various ends. They can convey a scientific fact, or throw a shadow of her child's dream on the heart of a mother. They are things to put together like the pieces of dissected map, or to arrange like the notes on a stave. Is the music in them to go for nothing? It can hardly help the definiteness of a meaning: is it therefore to be disregarded? They have length, and breadth, and outline: have they nothing to do with depth? Have they only to describe, never to impress? Has nothing any claim to their use but definite? The cause of a child's tears may be altogether undefinable: has the mother therefore no antidote for his vague misery? That may be strong in colour which has no evident outline. A fairtytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.

I will go farther.--The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is--not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding--the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be.

"But a man may then imagine in your work what he pleases, what you never meant!"

Not what he pleases, but what he can. If he be not a true man, he will draw evil out of the best; we need not mind how he treats any work of art! If he be a true man, he will imagine true things; what matter whether I meant them or not? They are there none the less that I cannot claim putting them there! One difference between God's work and man's is, that, while God's work cannot mean more than he meant, man's must mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is a layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought: it is God's things, his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such combinations in the mind of another as he had himself not foreseen, so many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time things that came from thoughts beyond his own.

"But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?"

I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there not to hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, "Roses! Boil them, or we won't have them!" My tales may not be roses but I will not boil them.

So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him.

If a writer's aim be logical conviction, he must spare no logical pains, not merely to be understood, but to escape being misunderstood; where his object is to move by suggestion, to cause to imagine, then let him assail the soul of his reader as the wind assails an aeolian harp. If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it. Let fairytale of mine go for a firefly that now flashes, now is dark, but may flash again. Caught in a hand which does not love its kind, it will turn to an insignificant ugly thing, that can neither flash nor fly.

The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part of us for whose sake it exists. We spoil countless precious things by intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, must--he cannot help himself--become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He will, however need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a very large creature indeed.

If any strain of my "broken music" make a child's eyes flash, or his mother's grow for a moment dim, my labour will not have been in vain.

THE END

Day 8: Label Me This, Label Me That

(I wrote this for one of my classes, but I felt compelled to share it here and hope it might elicit a response from those of you who should dare to read it. Comments are welcome. I wrote this not so much to answer questions but to perhaps pose new ones and hope that someone might be challenged in them to find truth for themselves. It is my most sincere hope that this insignificant essay be not a statement but an initiation of dialogue. Bless, y'all!)

What is man without his labels? It seems everywhere one turns in modern culture there is a new label or categorization employed to describe some aspect of a person’s identity. Modern psychology seems especially dedicated to the systematic classification and categorization of virtually every single thought pattern imaginable, aberrant or not. When I was growing up, a hyper kid who talked in class and seemed to have far more energy than they could possibly ever expend was just a kid with excess energy. Now, they suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD, or its more aggressive twin, Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder, ADHD. All of which has me wondering what came first: the disorder or the label? Labels comfort most people. They give a sense of belonging, an explanation for their own nature, a way of describing self. Yet to what extent does the label influence or even form self-identity? If a parent labels a child as ADD from an early age, will that child grow into the identity of ADD, or was the label merely giving a classification to what was already present within the self of the child? To answer these questions there must first exist a clear understanding of what the self, what identity, truly is and what extent language affects the formation and alteration of self identity. There must also be answered the question of whether or not this identity, the self, can be controlled, altered, and manipulated in any form. Can a person externally influence the self of another person? Can a person control, even change, self, their own identity? If language does influence identity and the self can be controlled by internal or external forces, then it would seem clear that labeling and self-categorization have formative effects on the identity of a person. In short, words can change who we are, or at least who we believe ourselves to be.

The nature of identity itself defies conventional categorization and definition. Psychologists and philosophers wage great wars and crusades to pin down the nature of identity and there has yet to be any consensus within those communities. Man struggles to give voice to his own essence, his being. This difficulty defining identity perhaps should give some inclination as to whether or not identity itself is directly influenced by language. If language cannot yet give a concrete explanation of what makes a person unique, why should anyone expect they could use language to explain themselves? Perhaps the true problem centers on the complex and often fluid nature of identity as opposed to the relatively less abstract nature of language.

Social Identity Theory in psychology teaches that identity is wrapped up tightly in socialization and group interaction. Any social group to which one feels a sense of belonging will mold an individual’s identity, creating a multi-faceted and highly complex reflection of the various social interactions of the individual. For example, if the individual joins a political group that defines itself as a liberal group, that individual will tend to begin to identify themselves as being politically liberal. Further, that individual will likely find a specific role identity within that group, typically by fulfilling some perceived need within the group or by applying their own perceived gifts and abilities toward some goal common to the group. This role identity helps solidify a sense of belonging within that group and further reinforces their identity with those other members of the political group. Yet a person’s role identity often changes within a group over an extended period of time. Role identities also vary greatly from one social group to another as can the language used to label those identities within each group.

How can a single word, a label, possibly hope to describe the many subtle nuances of an individual identity? I do not believe it ever can. This then raises yet another question: if a label can not adequately describe identity, why do we use them? From my own experiences and research, there seem to be two compelling answers. People frequently employ identity labels to aid communication of self amongst those who have little or no existing knowledge of, or relationship with them. These labels also control personal perception of the identity of both self and others.

In one of the top grossing movies of 1998, You've Got Mail, the Joe Fox character, played by Tom Hanks, makes a poignant revelation of modern life. He lucidly observes, “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino. “ For all the advances in communication and the myriad new decisions we are faced with every day in modern society, we have become less equipped to communicate and less able to make decisions. We live in a culture that keeps us too busy to develop organic relationships. The result is the capsulizing of identity into key words we can quickly describe to another person. We cut to the chase to determine whether we perceive the relationship is even worth investing time and energy to cultivate, believing our time to be severely limited by the numerous demands of modern life. In the process, we run the constant risk of misinterpreting each other’s identities due to differences in the way we interpret each other’s language.

When do we become so submerged into our role identities that we actually miss an opportunity for an important personal connection with another individual? In You've Got Mail, the Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly characters spend most of the movie encountering each other in their social role identities, where they distrust and dislike each other, while simultaneously, and unwittingly, developing a very strong personal connection with each other on-line through email. Presumably, they bare more of their true self to one another outside the restrictions of their social role identities and find they actually have much in common, eventually developing a strong attraction and even love for one another. This narrative exposes a strange contradiction in the interaction between language and identity. The same person expressing themselves through language in their social role identity creates a very different perception than when they are expressing themselves through language via email, outside their social role identity. According to boxofficemojo.com, the movie grossed over $250 million worldwide, clearly touching on a subject easily identifiable to a wide audience. Could it be that our modern lives have become so dominated by socialization and role-based identities that we have lost our sense of self? Have we lost our ability to know ourselves beyond how we are known by others in our social groups? A quick search on Google of the term “personality test” would indicate the answer is yes. There are hundreds of different tests designed by men and women with numerous credentials for one purpose: to help you know who you are. Take the test, get your label, know yourself.

As often appears the case with identity, investigation into its nature creates more questions than answers. Perhaps that is the entire point. Identity may not be the destination at all. Identity may be the life-long journey of self-discovery, a process that ends only in death, and perhaps not even then. Whether we create labels to explain our identity or our identities mold themselves to the labels we give ourselves and others, one thing is clear: humans hate to be alone. If there were no other people to interact with and express ourselves to, then we would have no use for labels. Humans desire labels and role identities because they help give a sense of belonging. Labels provide a fast method of expressing self to others in a modern world where there is often little time allowed for the slow development of relationship and intimate interpersonal knowledge.

Day 7: Supreme Court Victory?

All my news feeds are chiming today with the news of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding "partial-birth abortions". If you haven't heard, the Supreme Court ruled today 5-4 to restrict late-term abortion procedures, specifically the procedures where the baby is partially delivered and immediately killed by crushing its skull. There are far more details involved and I'd suggest anyone interested to read the actual case and ruling, or at least some of the articles written about it. The Court ruled that the states did have a legitimate interest in preserving and promoting fetal life.

I read anti-abortion activist after activist claiming such a great victory at the news of the ruling. But don't ask me to be entirely thrilled at this "victory". Oh, no. Look, I believe in Jesus and I believe that life begins far before birth or even conception. Life begins outside of all our concepts of time. I truly think that abortion is sickening. But this ruling affects only a tiny percentage of actual abortions yearly in the United States. And here's the greater anger stirred in me: this means more money diverted into lobbying and bringing untold numbers of suits against various individuals, states, governments, etc. In other words, the Christian right, now emboldened by this victory, is going to sink untold millions, if not billions, of dollars on lawyers and politicians with the hopes of passing more stringent anti-abortion laws and pressing the issue further with the courts by filing countless suits.

That really pisses me off.

When is the religious community going to learn that it's impossible to legislate morality? Did prohibition reduce alcoholism in this country? Not significantly, and it increased crime and gave organized mafia syndicates a foothold in America they haven't yet relinquished.

The only thing that's going to turn the tide of abortion in this country is changing way we treat these mothers in the community and changing the hearts of the mothers who are considering abortion. I can't even imagine the mental, spiritual, and emotional anguish that goes along with that type of decision. But I've known some women who have, and I've seen some of the emotional and spiritual damage their decisions have brought. One was my own mother who aborted my older brother or sister some five years before I was conceived. The reason was simple, she believed she would be outcast by her family and society and she believed she had no other real choice. She believed she wouldn't be able to properly support a child. From my own personal research, this is the most common situation young women find themselves in when they're considering aborting. Societal and familial outcast coupled with economic fears.

Does anyone out there really believe that passing a law is going to change those factors? Do you really believe that passing a law is going to stop abortion? Really? I'm sorry, I don't. Case in point, my own mother. She had her abortion over a year before the Roe v. Wade decision. When the doctor told her she was pregnant, she replied that she couldn't have a baby right now, somewhat in shock. Do you know what his response was? He calmly made an appointment for her to see another doctor who would perform the abortion for her. Within a week, it was done, and with clinical precision. And all that time it was completely against the law!

Why does the religious community continue to sink untold millions and billions of dollars into fighting a 35 year losing legal battle?!?!?! WHY!!!! Can someone please give me an answer that makes even the least bit of sense? Can someone please tell me why we can't use that money to build shelters, adoption agencies, free OB/GYN clinics, provide first-class prenatal care for free, provide educational resources for free, college scholarships for free, day-care for single mothers for free???? The list goes on and on. Why must we continue to ostracize these women from our communities? (As an aside, I understand many churches are doing many of the above things and I applaud them for their efforts.)

Those of us who are against abortion should be the ultimate pro-choicers, we should be giving women all kinds of choices in addition to abortion. But instead we continue to spend millions and billions of dollars in a vain attempt to prevent women from doing something most of them don't really want to do in the first place! We march and we waive banners, and babies die. What kind of love is that? What kind of love gladly gives money, time, and support to a lawyer instead of a pregnant mother who thinks she's out of options? Shouldn't we really be spending more of our time, money, and support on the mother who's going to have to make the ultimate decision? I mean, shouldn't we be doing that anyway? Isn't that what loving our neighbors requires us to do?

I'm sick and tired of the admission of defeat by the religious community in America. That's what anti-abortion legislation truly is. It's an admission that they're no longer able to reach the hearts and minds of young women in America. It's an admission that there's no longer unconditional love within the churches of America. It's an admission that we can't love our own neighbors, so we better get the government to stop them from doing something we find offensive and wrong. Before you go out and march for anti-abortion, go ask your pastor or elder how much of your church's money has been spent to start a women's shelter, to provide free health care for single mothers, to provide daycare for single mothers, or scholarships for single mothers to complete their degrees. Then ask them how much money has been sent to some lawyer or action group in Washington, or your local state capital so they can lobby for anti-abortion legislation. Their answers just might shock you into sobriety.

Then ask yourself, how do you think Jesus would handle the situation? Would he give his time and resources to changing the laws of the government of the land, or would he spend his time loving and attending to the needs of the women who have run out of options? If you can answer those questions honestly and still feel good about going out and marching, then by all means go for it, let your voice be heard. But don't ask me to consider today's "victory" anything but an admission of absolute failure on the part of the Church in America. We've failed to do our job, we've failed to love, so now we demand the government to do it for us. But governments don't know how to love, all they know how to do is restrict and enforce, and all that breeds is resentment.

I serve a God who gave us all absolute choice, free will. It's interesting how so many who come in His name seem to be determined to restrict that choice, as if they knew better than God. What arrogance we've shown the world. Let's try to reach some hearts in love before we go demanding obedience in law. Pray that God will change hearts, not laws.

Day 6: Life Intervenes

Well, so much for my original plan of writing every single day for 30 days starting on my birthday. Ha, I didn't even make it a solid week before life intervened. Over the past week and change I've had a ton of work, massive amounts of reading, and a few papers for school that needed my attention. I didn't even manage to make it down to Los Angeles despite having an entire week off for Spring Break. C'est la vie, best laid plans, and all that rot.

Fortunately, the tide of work is ebbing and I'm finally able to re-devote myself to writing my blogs. I have several things I want to discuss and lay down, several questions that need to be asked. They're troublesome questions, perhaps some might even consider them dangerous. But they've been dominating some of my thoughts for the past few months. In some cases, years. I have my own thoughts on what the answers might be, but that's really not the point. The point is that the questions, although dangerous, are valid, and I've decided it's time they be asked.

I will leave you with the first of the questions I've been wrestling with: is God revealed by creation? In other words, can we learn anything about God through observing the natural universe?

Day 5: Why I love the night

Like a gentle lover, night calls upon me again. She knows no hurries, her ways are patient. Quiet and slow she creeps upon me with fluid grace. Scarcely do I realize she comes before she takes me full into her arms, stealing me away from her brother day. Twinkling gems set in heaven's velvet gown shine at her arrival. No longer banished by Sol's jealous monopoly, they dance for us their stately minuet across the sky, their steps fixed in antiquity. Luna graces us with a smile, her cheshire grin caught firm in her brother's gaze. Night's voice is calm and quiet, a whispered breath drawn close to the ear where none should overhear. She does not fear silence but welcomes its intimate embrace. Never insisting on my attention, she leaves me space for my thoughts. Yet always she's there to listen whenever I should need to talk. When my cares overwhelm me, she hides away my tears. Its her song sung in stillness that sends me quick to sleep. I wish to hold her near me longer than her stay. And though each morn she leaves me, she never fails her vow to return.

Day 4: Connections to the past

I've never embraced the past. Not precisely sure why. I know my heritage, I've researched my Norse ancestry as several of those close to me can attest. I'm even known as the Norseman to a few, several years ago I even looked the part with long hair, beard, and braids. I miss my braids, but that's another blog. But all those things, my ancestry and such, are very archetypal. What I mean is that I've never really had any connection to the recent past, mine or my family's.

The past, for me, has always been just that: the past. Historical reference. It's simply not where I live. I live now, but now is a very long time because, in all reality, now is no time. There's an old truism, "There's no time like the present." But I like to flip it around and realize that in the present, there's no time. The word present comes from the Latin prae, an adverb or preposition which means "before" or "in front" and esse, the infinitive form of the verb sum, "to be". Literally to be before. Another way of saying it would be to say "the existence in front of you." To be now! Okay, I've gotten onto a tangent. Got so many rabbit trails in my mind, it's hard to keep from falling in sometimes. Let's see, retrace and retry.

So I don't live in the past, never really have. I have few things that connect me with my own past, and few friends who've known me long enough to ground me to my roots. And as for family, well, I've lived most of my life a long ways away from them and know them more distantly than most of my friends. Even photos of me as a child are few and far between. Few were taken and many that were have been lost to time and endless moves. Some have survived, like this one, taken at age five.

Not a bad looking kid, if I do say so myself. This picture amuses me, though, cause I see so much of myself in it. The eyes looking off, thoughtful and alert, arms crossed, left lip rising in a slight smirk as if I just told myself my own inside joke, probably about the photographer or the entire situation. No matter how much I live in the present, the past still affects me. Perhaps that's because the past isn't quite what we think it is. If our souls and spirits are eternal, as I believe they are, then that means they exist outside the constraints of time. If that's true, then my reality and experiences now can have an impact on who I was then and vice versa. To take it further, the things I have yet to do and experience could very well be shaping my perception now just like I know my current experiences will have an impact on who I will become, which really isn't becoming at all, it's simply a continued state of being. A continuation of that thing we call the present. A continuation of now.

This realization has helped connect me with a lot more of my own past and help put in perspective some of the things that I never seemed to be able to shake and attitudes and thought patterns I still have no real explanation for. But what of feeling any sort of connection to family in the sense of being a continuation of a story of the blood that has passed down to me? Well, some strange things have happened recently. To explain one of them, I first have to tell you that I really don't like watches, or even clocks for that matter.

I've always had a very good internal clock. I can usually feel the time and I'm usually accurate within fifteen minutes. For the last year, though, I've been wanting a watch. I don't like most modern watches, though. They're way too big, or too flashy, or have too many features. I just want something that tells me the time. I also don't like to have to change batteries, and I have a love for great workmanship. In other words, I wanted a vintage watch. Something made when pride in workmanship still meant something real. There's something about a truly mechanical watch that's just appealing to me. So I started doing the research and keeping my eyes open for a vintage watch within my price range that really appealed to me. I just wanted something simple and efficient. I never seemed to find one. Then today I was talking to my mom about wanting a vintage watch and she tells me she has her father's old watch. I was really surprised. She's been lugging it around for over twenty years. Within a few minutes, she had found it and gave it to me. It's a smart Wyler Swiss made military-style vintage watch from the WWII era, exactly what I'd been desiring. It's a beautiful example of functional craftsmanship. The more amazing thing is that after a few winds, this 60+ year old watch with a 17-jewel mechanical timepiece started right up and is keeping perfect time. If not for some slight wear you'd think the thing was brand new.

My grandfather died when I was very young, I have few memories of him. Even when he was alive, he was battling several physical ailments, including cancer. He lived a hard life. When I look at this watch, I can almost see him. I wonder if he had it when he was in the Philippines as a Marine during World War II. I wonder if we stood on the same ground, separated by sixty years, when I made my own trips there. I'll never know but, looking at this watch and admiring its workmanship (as I suspect he did too), I think I do know. Suddenly, today, I had a remarkable connection to my grandfather, a remarkable connection to the past. One, I suppose, that was always there waiting to be discovered.

Day 3: A sad day in Westwood

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The pride of Los Angeles, the greatest legacy in organized sports, the record-setting run of the UCLA Bruins was cut short today. Anticipation charged the air leading up to the match-up against Florida in the Bruin's record 17th Final Four appearance. The stage was set for vindication. Florida had sent the Bruins home second-best in the NCAA last year. Now the Bruins poised to send the Gators packing without even a chance at repeating their title. It was not to be.

"the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition…"

There is truly a thrill of victory and agony of defeat in sports. It's an emotion quite unlike anything I've experienced off the field (or court, track, pool, etc). The taste of victory is sweeter than any nectar. For a brief moment, you're a king among men. There is nothing you cannot do, no challenge you will not overcome, no foe too great. I have even experienced a victory so perfect that my own actions seemed not so much a conscious effort but for a brief moment it seemed as though God and the angels were with me and my teammates, guiding our every movement to perfection. A sense overcame me that on that day that no one on earth could defeat us. I have also felt the sting of defeat. It truly is agony, its symptoms akin to the stages of grieving. Questions fill the mind, uncertainty in yourself and your teammates. In some cases, the feeling is so strong it causes physical distress and pain. Few things I have experienced come near to the pain of knowing you gave everything you could muster into the effort of competing and knowing that on that day it simply was not enough.

There are few competitions on the planet that capture this better than the NCAA Basketball Tournament. As I watched the Bruins fight valiantly to the wire in a losing effort, I agonized with them. All my own experiences in various sports seemed to rush together at once and form in me such a great empathy for the UCLA players and coaches. They got the team they wanted, took their shot, and came up short. But they are a young team, and the experiences of losing in such a large arena will ultimately be good for them.

There is something worse in life than never learning how to win. It is never learning how to lose. In this life, we will never be victorious in everything that we do. We will experience loss, we will experience hard times, and it is how we handle ourselves in these moments, how we react in defeat, that truly demonstrates our character and maturity. Most people can be strong in victory, it requires very little character and personal strength when your environment affirms you. I've met very few people who were strong in defeat and loss. The real test in life is how we handle ourselves when we experience "the agony of defeat".

One interesting side-note as I close is that on Monday night Florida will play Ohio State for the NCAA Basketball National Championship. Just a few months ago, the Florida football team defeated the Ohio State football team in the Football National Championship. In that game, the Gators were the underdog to the Buckeyes. On Monday, the Buckeyes will be a decided underdog against the Gators. Will the underdog be victorious once again? No school has ever won the Basketball and Football championships in the same academic year. Florida has as good a shot as anyone I've ever seen. Will they make history? I don't know, but you can be sure I'll be watching to find out.

Day 2: A message to all drivers

I truly wish y'all would slow down. Is it really necessary to drive so fast? Are you truly getting to your destination all that much sooner by going 10 miles an hour faster? Let's do the math. Let's say you've got to go fifteen miles on surface streets. Now, traffic signals and heavy traffic conditions can add a lot of time to travel, but these are constants. In other words, if you hit a red light, you have to stop, whether you're going 35 or 45 miles an hour. If you run into bad traffic that's moving 20 miles per hour, it really doesn't matter much if you were going 35 or 45 when you reach it. The only part of the equation you really have any control over is how fast you drive when you're not stuck in traffic or at a red light. So that's what I'm taking into account.

Back to our situation. You've got to drive fifteen miles on surface streets. Speed limits in metropolitan areas typically range from 25 to 45 mph, so for the purpose of my illustration we will assume the average speed limit for your trip is 35 mph. If you were to drive at the speed limit for your trip, 35 mph, it would take you 25.7 minutes of driving time to reach your destination. If you decide to speed and average 10 mph faster than the speed limit, 45 mph, your trip will take you 20 minutes of drive time. You're saving just under six minutes of drive time, but at what risk to your own safety and that of others? If you're taking the freeway, speeding becomes even more dangerous and saves you considerably less time. Say you had to go that 15 miles on the interstate in a 65 mph zone. If you travel at the posted speed limit, you will require 13.8 minutes of drive time. If you drive at 75 mph, 10 mph over the posted limit, you will require 12 minutes of drive time. You're saving less than two minutes! Seriously, now, have our lives come to such a place where two minutes is worth putting our own lives and others at potentially serious risk?

Another thing I'd like you to consider: come to a full stop at stop signs and red lights, even if you're turning right. I no longer own a car, I get around on my own two feet and using public transportation and on my bicycle if the distance is too great. Personally, I love it. I've noticed my quality of life has gone up considerably. I'm also far less irritable. Truthfully, I'm not losing all that much time by my choices either. But here's my problem. I've been hit by cars many times. Fortunately, God built me like a tank and so far I haven't been injured seriously, just some scrapes and bruises. But over the past five years, I've been hit by cars as a pedestrian five times and three times on my bike. Nearly every single one of those hits was a situation where I was crossing a street or parking lot entrance where a car was making a right turn and never looked right! The driver never came to a full stop and never saw me until they were hitting me. Several of them even proceeded to get out of their car and yell at me for getting in their way! I'm quite serious, they hit me in a crosswalk and got out to yell at me!

"You should've stopped at the crosswalk and waited for me, " I recall one angry guy in a truck exclaiming at me, "You could've gotten yourself killed!"

Apparently, in his mind, a pedestrian who steps out into a crosswalk and gets hit by a car who has a stop-sign and never stops or looks right has just attempted suicide. He was that unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, and I've found that it's not an uncommon attitude for most people. I was very tempted to call the police at that point and have them explain to him one of the most basic of all driving laws: the pedestrian ALWAYS has the right of way. It doesn't matter if a pedestrian is crossing a busy street illegally, they have the right of way every time without exception. If you don't know that, please consult your traffic safety laws and cure your ignorance. The reason for this is simple, it takes very little to kill a person with a car. Fifteen miles per hour is quite often a fatal speed when you hit a pedestrian. I challenge you to go out to your car and try to drive that slow! Most people can't, it's not easy, especially if you have an automatic transmission.

All I'm asking is that those of you who drive regularly slow down and look around a little more at intersections. Realize that you're in a lethal weapon every single time you get behind the wheel and that even the best of drivers can get into accidents. Put the phone down, pay attention to the road, slow down, and, please, always look to the right at an intersection! The life you save could be mine.

Day 1: On this day

On this day 30 years ago, March 29th, 1977, at approximately 2am, I was born. My mother had asked God what my name was to be, and only one answer was ever given: David, which means beloved. The name God gave me, through my mother, the name I claim over myself daily, the name I write on countless forms and documents, the name you all know me as, is my constant reminder of God's unending, unyielding, uncompromising, undeserved love for me.

I say I was born on March 29th, 1977, but perhaps a better phrase would be to say I arrived. Many years later, in my twenties, God would show me my real birth. And I would never be quite the same. I recall praying and meditating when I began to sense the power of God's Spirit approaching me. It was very much like being in the ocean when a series of very powerful waves begin rolling in. You can actually feel them coming before they reach you. It was much the same, only these were waves of raw spiritual power so strong they began to take on an actual sound which I cannot possibly describe. It was not a sound like you would hear with your ears, more like a resonance, as if the waves of power passing through me were actually vibrating my entire being. It was as if every molecule in my being were transmitting this sound to my consciousness, and that sound was completely unlike anything I had heard.

I became aware of angels in the room with me. I see angels a lot, although by "see" I do not mean as in a physical sense. We perceive this physical world by our eyes absorbing and interpreting light energy passing through space-time, the first four dimensions (length, width, depth, and time). The spiritual realms are completely outside this space-time of four dimensions so describing what I see in a physical sense is somewhat difficult. These angels were like whorls of energy in constant motion yet confined to a limited "space" such that they seemed to almost have a gravity of their own and light therefore twisted around them in strange ways almost such that they appeared to be columns of pure, radiant light. The physical world around them seemed to distort and bend, not unlike when you press your finger into an LCD screen. I barely had time to take note of these angels, though, when another wave of God's presence reached me and at that point I was fully caught up by him.

My physical surroundings simply seemed to vanish in an instant and I found myself standing naked before the living God. There have never been words invented nor language conceived that could possibly attempt to describe Yahweh, Jehovah, Who Was and Who Is and Who Is To Come. Light and power poured out from His presence in such colors and intensity that I am simply unable to give it words. His light tore through every part of my being with such intensity that I simply understood that I was undone. Not dead or destroyed, more like I never was. Yet simultaneously His power kept me together. And that power, His light, His very presence...there was sound. The light that was passing through me also had audible qualities unlike anything I could have dreamed was even possible. It was then that He reached out and touched my head and spoke. This is how I've chosen to describe His voice. It was as if every single thing in all the creation, every different creature, rock, molecule, everything that ever was and ever will be made every single noise or sound it could possibly ever make..all at once. Everything sounded at once in every possible way, every tone, that thing was capable of creating. Billions upon billions of voices and sounds, each distinct, each making every possible range of sound capable all at once. It was the voice of eternity. The word he spoke to me was completely unutterable for this very reason. But I understood as the force of it passed through me and blasted me into nothing that what he was speaking was my very name. And within his utterance of my name was the entirety of me. He was showing me my own creation as he literally spoke me into existence in eternity. Within that utterance was all of my existence, all I've ever been and ever will be contained in that single breath, that single spoken word that echoed out into eternity.

That spoken word uttered in eternity eventually found its way through creation to Earth, and sometime around what we think of as early summer 1976 that echo of God's very voice in eternity reached its way down into this physical universe on planet Earth somewhere in Oregon and I was conceived. Nine months and some change later, I was born on March 29, 1977. And that utterance continues to move through this space-time we perceive as our physical world until it moves on and I with it.

God has spoken all our names in eternity. His power invested in us, creating us, forming us, calling us. Will we listen? Will we have ears to hear? I am eternally thankful, for I have heard my own name spoken by God and I know who I am.

I am beloved.

30 days to "be loved"

For those of y'all who don't know, it's my 30th birthday on Thursday. Since I'm apart from so many of y'all, my dear friends, I've decided to celebrate my birthday with y'all in a slightly unconventional way. One of my loves, my passion, is writing. Some of you actually read my blogs, and I thank you. A couple of you have been very kind in your comments. I've decided to toast my own 30th year with 30 days of blogs.

Yes, I'm going to write a new blog EVERY SINGLE DAY for 30 days starting this Thursday. Topics will be as varied and random as, well...me! Those who know me well know that can be VERY random. They might be introspective, they might be about culture, politics, spirituality. They could be poetry. Heck, I may even do a full formal essay if I feel like it. With the Final Four this weekend, you can almost be guaranteed I'll give you my take on the games and broadcasts.

Y'all who know me well will probably chuckle at topics you've heard time and time again. Others of you will get a glimpse into my world, my thoughts, and my heart.

So I invite you all to come check out my blog starting on Thursday, March 29th, my 30th birthday, for 30 days of...well, me, I guess! LOL.

BE LOVED, BELOVED,
DAVID
(get it?)

Identity vs. Language

I've recently read an article for one of my classes that dealt with deafness as its own culture or, perhaps more correctly, subculture. It brought up some very interesting realities about deafness and the deaf culture, especially with regards to their own identification and language.

The article discussed the deaf culture in America; specifically, how deafness, to the deaf, is not a disability but a culture, while mainstream America views it as more of a medical disability. Something that needs to be solved or corrected rather than integrated. It discussed how the majority of deaf Americans view themselves as their own subculture, complete with their own language, ASL (American Sign Language). This is a culture, according to the article, that does not wish to be forced into step with mainstream culture and learn an auditory language they will never completely master. They do not wish to have their "condition" corrected by modern medical procedures. Rather, they seem to desire to be as they are and have their environment and surrounding culture recognize them as being more than disabled.

What it left me with is this question: what comes first, identity or language? Does language define our identity or does our identity define our language?

This question goes far beyond ASL and the deaf culture, it is a universal question and applies to any culture and any language on the planet. It's a bit of a chicken and egg question, but can it be answered? Myself, I've always held that identity precedes and supersedes language. How we identify ourselves, I would argue, has little to do with our language. Language enters the picture when we attempt to understand our relationship to others and how we perceive their identity. Identity is personal, language is relational.

Language helps us to understand, or at least perceive, those who have at least some similar experiences and gives us a sense of comfort and recognition. For example, I lived in Atlanta and even still carry some traces of a southern accent and vocabulary. I say y'all quite often. I even do all the crazy stuff with y'all, like y'all's, y'all're, etc. When I hear someone speaking in a southern accent and dialect, I immediately know at least a few small facts about that person and can probably find some shared or similar experiences very quickly in conversation. This then builds a connection of security and/or familiarity with that person typically leading to greater openness and relationship that may not have been possible otherwise. Yet it would be a terrible assumption to believe that, purely based on a shared vernacular, I could perceive that person's identity. We may be able to communicate at a high level, but that says nothing about whether we truly have anything in common from the standpoint of self-identity. And it says even less about whether I'll be able to comprehend that person's identity and world-view, even though they could describe it to me in their natural language.

Coming back to the original article, what does this mean for deaf America? From what I've read in the article, my impression is that the deaf culture fears a loss of its own identity should deafness be "corrected" via any means. I would contend that they would not lose their identity but how they relate to each other and to other cultures. The same thing would also happen if all of America were forced, or chose, to learn ASL. If English has branched out into hundreds of variant dialects and vernaculars, who is to say that ASL wouldn't do the same exact thing? Then, a deaf person might be faced with the harsh reality of traveling from one area of the country to another and still being unable to fully communicate. Just like the rest of us.

The Importance of Being

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his."

-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Anyone who's known me for very long and had many conversations with me has likely heard me say that quote. Indeed, it's one of my favorite quotes from any character in any work of fiction. More than a quote to me, it's a mental puzzle I work out in my head quite often. A Chinese Box in the very real sense that, every time I consider the statement, I arrive at a new conclusion, much like opening the box and finding a completely new and independent box nested within. The very act of attempting to understand the statement and how it should apply to my life brings forth a revelation that also reveals a new challenge, a new question to be considered.

Tonight, I was considering the statement from a completely new perspective. I've recently taken a complete u-turn in my life. No, not a u-turn, precisely. Think of it more like traveling down a road and coming to a fork. You look down both roads and see very little that gives you any indication that either direction is heading where you want to go, because, in reality, you don't even know for certain where you want to go. You simply know that to stand still means death since life, at its very essence, is motion and change. Therefore death, by its very nature, is lack of motion and stasis. Indeed, cryogenic scientists even sometimes refer to suspended animation or cryogenic sleep as "reversible death". But that's another blog altogether.

Back to the fork. So you pick one direction or the other, perhaps you just flip a coin. Heads, go left; tails, right. Either choice seems appropriate because you have little information on which to form a reasonable decision. Yet, deep inside, your intuition tells you, "go left". You take the left path and after a considerable time pursuing your choice, you begin to understand your destination. A bit further down the path and it becomes clear that the road you're on is not taking you any closer to that place you want to get to. At that moment, you have a new decision to make: turn around and go all the way back to the fork, or try to gain your bearings and head off into the wilderness.

The wilderness is not fun, believe me. I've made several failed attempts to blaze my own trail. A mathematician will tell you that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Anyone who's done much hiking in the mountains will tell you that's insanity. So after several attempts to strike my own way, I decided to turn back and find that old fork. And an interesting thing happened when I did: I found that getting back to the fork took far less time than traveling from the fork to the point where I turned back. Most people, I think, have experienced this illogical phenomenon. Ever travel somewhere, then travel back to your original location and marvel over how much less time it seemed to take coming back? Weird, huh?

In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, I found myself back at the fork. This time, however, the choice was so much more clear. I could see so much further down both roads that I scratched my head a little at why I'd ever decided to go down the left road in the first place. Intuition. Huh, who said that? Shrugging it off without much thought, I began down the right road. Pun intended.

I see the craggy peaks and dense forests ahead of me along this right road. Challenges lie ahead, but I'm ready to not only attack them with ferocity but overcome them. I wasn't ready eleven years ago when I took the left road. A mountain climber doesn't immediately go out and climb Everest. They train extensively, climbing several smaller mountains as they work themselves up to the task of Everest. In the same way, that left road was important as it trained me for the right road.

Life is not linear. A friend sent me an email recently that reminded me of this. Time is merely the fourth dimension and we exist in far more dimensions than four. We are eternal beings. So why do we always have to put our lives in terms of Point A and Point B? Origin and destination? What if we're already at the destination even if we cannot fully perceive it? Why can't we simply be? Or can we? This world, by which I mean this culture and the powers that drive the culture, would have us believe that we must reach forward and attain to some future goal, some future point to which we are traveling and have not yet reached. I lost track of how many people have told me that I should be setting goals and then working toward them. Huh? What kind of linear thinking is that? So I'm supposed to designate an imaginary Point B, realize I'm at Point A, and begin plotting points between and move through four-dimensional space-time toward Point B? That's the key to life and success? Sounds like algebra to me.

The problem, as I see it, with this type of thinking is that it backloads all sense of validation and identity to the achievement of these imaginary points in our lives. But what if I get half-way down that left road toward Point B and realize I have to turn around? Have I failed, somehow? Have I lost my identity? Not a chance! I've succeeded in being me. I've been. What I do is not nearly as important as who I am. I have a new way of thinking. I know who I am and, therefore, I can perceive where I'm going. Not the other way around. I lived like that for much of my life, striving toward everything I wanted without enjoying every moment because I perceived a lack. I perceived that I had to move forward. I had to become. No more. God sees who I am and loves me completely, and now so do I. Not where I'm going, not who I'm going to become. That's illusion. I am. I am eternal, imbued with the very breath of the divine. Outside of time, I simply am and that's who God sees. Me. The real me. All of me. Can you see yourself? The left road taught me how to see myself.

What about Oscar Wilde and the quote? Well, didn't I say it was a Chinese Box? Besides, it would only really make sense to me. The destination isn't as important as the journey. The journey teaches us the importance of being. Welcome to my world.

Anyone else feel a draft?

I have a problem. I seem to lack the capacity to write drafts. Oh, I try. I make valiant efforts to ford that river, but the currents of my perfectionist mind are frequently too swift to find sure footing. Within a sentence or two, I often lose my footing on the slippery rocks of the riverbed and go cascading down the rapids of revision. Even as I write this, my mind is already devising ways to undermine me. "Don't use that word, you use it all the time," I hear. "That sentence wouldn't even make sense to a Harvard lawyer high on coke." Or my personal favorite: "Can't you say anything without using fifty different literary devices? Damn, David, just say it!"

Every time I sit down to write something for the first time, be it poetry, prose, essay, even emails, my mind squares off and prepares to fight itself to the death. At times, the words just flow and I'm able to fight off the blows of my analytical mind. More often, though, I lose myself mid-thought to a flurry of revisions hurled at me with the precision and speed of a Cy Young pitcher. And just when I think I've got his timing down and I'm ready to knock the next pitch out of the park...change-up, whiff, strike three, take a seat, kid.

Why should I care? What does it matter that my draft be laden with metaphor juxtaposed to terrible grammar and incomplete thoughts? No one is gonna see it, right? The point is simply to get something down. Anything. Something. Just write! The ideas will come if I can just give myself enough time to keep going. I know this to be true as my best writing always comes from moments of clarity when I can write my thoughts like a twelve-guage loaded with buckshot. Precision be damned, let's just spray the whole area with lead! When I release my thoughts as so much buckshot into the side of a barn, the page suddenly comes alive with possibilities, and I can carefully review them to find the best themes and ideas. It's like the story of the Texas sharpshooter: A guy takes a hunting rifle and fires many shots into the side of his barn. His shots go wild, but he finds a nice handful of shots that hit close together. So, ignoring the many other shots fired wildly, he circles those four of five in close proximity and brags that he's a sharpshooter. This is much the same way I arrive at all my greatest writings.

Armed with this knowledge, it should now be a simple thing to just press through the draft and be successful...right? I wish! It's still a struggle each time. Yet the more I persist, the quieter the voices become. The more often I write, the less the arguments seem to hold water. The more times I go to bat, the more wild that pitcher becomes. I say screw precision and just bloody write!

Once more unto the breach

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"

And so opens the third act of Henry V, by William Shakespeare. When I was younger, I once performed that monologue on the stage, and, still to this day, it never fails to raise my head and stir my blood.

Indeed, a fitting sermon for me in this time of my life. For I have once more entered that breach, and, as Henry suggests, I shall not leave until I am either victorious or I seal the wall up in my own blood and death. I speak figuratively.

I am, once more, a student. It seems hard to believe sometimes. It's been nearly eleven years since I left Georgia Tech and abandoned my pursuit of a degree in theoretical physics. Eleven years, one more year than I was actually in school my entire life. It seems strange to me that I should now come to a point in my life where I have spent more time OUT of school than I was IN school, yet the fact remains. (For those who wonder how that's possible, I didn't go to school during 1st grade, 6th grade, and most of 4th and 8th grades...long story).

I am also no longer a child, I re-enter school within sight of my 30th birthday. Time enough to temper me, steel my resolve, and clarify my purpose. That purpose is to finally complete my degree in physics, while also pursuing a degree in linguistics and anthropology, then head into graduate school and work toward at least one Ph.D. with the ultimate goal of becoming a tenured professor/researcher at a University. I'll be in school for the rest of my life. And that suits me fine, since my education truly has never ceased. Although I have been out of an organized classroom for many years, I have never stopped my own research and education. I have also come to the conclusion, after some eleven years in the corporate arena, that the corporate gig is not for me. I want to help create knowledge and shape minds. I want to write and publish. More than that, it is truly part of my purpose on this Earth.

I say all this with the purpose of encouraging those who may be frustrated in their life or feeling somewhat without purpose. Or perhaps you know your purpose yet feel like you're so far behind that it's out of reach. I tell you it is not out of reach, and you are never behind. You're precisely where you're supposed to be. Had I not left school for nearly eleven years, I would not have matured into the man who can now devote himself to that original purpose. Most likely, I would have burned out along the way. Now, I'm ready and you will be too. Ready to tackle whatever it is that God has destined you to become. Ready to be.

So I say again, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...."