Lately, when I hold Yoko, I've been talking to her. I've been working on strengthening our bond together because as I see it, she's going to be the only thing coming with me from this life into the next.
When I graduate and leave Drury, all of my friends will disperse. The community I've worked four years to create, the people who've been with me through it all, essentially the loves of my life, will disperse. My best friend David is moving to New Orleans with the Episcopal Church to help rebuild. Matt will be moving to Tennessee on scholarship to Vanderbilt's divinity school. Valerie will head to Kansas City with Nic to work at some company. There will be a few people left in Springfield, but I won't have a home there anymore. I'm so proud of all of us. We're all doing really great things with our lives, but it's really difficult to grow up and see through my childish desire to just put my fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and stomp around screaming at the change.
Yoko, however, will be delving deep into the unknown together. Together, we'll either make it in the dance world or we won't. It feels scary, I guess, to be going through the biggest change in my life with only a dog by my side. Not that she lacks commitment or loyalty or anything, but our conversations tend to be a bit one-sided.
It's tough for me to see the up side to graduation sometimes. I'm leaving the place I love, the people I love, the lifestyle I love, to go after something I'm not even sure I'll be able to make a living doing. I'm not saying that I'm choosing the wrong career path (I'm pretty positive I'm not), but it just seems strange to me that for the first time in my life I'm not as excited about the future as I am about right now. The future just seems like the end of today, which is a sad death in my mind. It's going to be a tough fight. That's for sure.
Is this normal? I feel a bit like a tamed animal who is about to get dropped off on the side of the road to fend for itself. Sink or swim. And do it alone. It's really terrifying.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Ends of Science...
Yesterday in science class I was having a discussion (some would call it a debate) with the chemistry professor. He made some off-handed comment about how God, or what we often times call God, is really just the gaps that science has yet to fill. "Mystery" is really just what we don't understand YET, but given enough time and testing, we'll get there.
Now, if you know me at all, you'll know that I'm really going to resist statements like that. They're dehumanizing, hubristic, and ultimately (I believe) wrong. So after asking a few more questions to make sure I had his position right (he conceded that it's very possible that science will never figure everything out, but the initial point that everything is essentially explainable in terms of physical cause and effect relationships and that the God of "mystery" will get eeked out given enough time remains) and then I tried to defend a bigger God than that, or at least the possibility that the universe isn't composed of entirely of phenomena explainable in terms of descriptive propositions. If I can get that point across, I've at least made room for science and God to coincide without encroaching upon each others' territory too much.
So let me try to give a few examples that get at my intuitions.
Imagine I find someone who has NEVER encountered sadness in any way and then I give them a book containing every single proposition about the entirely physical phenomenon of depression. This book contains everything from the physical and chemical states that cause people to feel depressed to a list of actions that depressed people have been known to commit while depressed. The book has everything. Journal entries from depressed people, lists of famous people who have had chronic depression, etc, etc. Now I ask you this: Assuming that this person had never experienced any sort of sadness and she or he had then learned everything there is to know about depression, would she or he have any idea what it feels like to be depressed?
Or how about this one:
Yesterday I went to go see a production from the Alvin Ailey II dance company. They came to Springfield and put on a FANTASTIC show (which I got $10 student rush tickets to!). There was one piece in the middle entitled "Essence" which I believe tried to articulate using poetic movement how it feels to be trapped inside yourself with some monstrous issue. The dance was just one woman on a chair. She stayed with the chair the whole time, unable to break her attachment to it no matter how much pain it seemed to be causing her to be sitting there alone. She writhed, she struggled, she laughed, she cried, she even tried to compose herself and put on the good face, but all to no avail. It was a beautiful piece, and incredibly moving. Here's an excerpt from it that I found on youtube:
Anyway, I was watching this piece while sitting next to one of my very good friends whose mother passed away last semester. I blogged about it here, and you can read a bit about her experiences. While watching it, I couldn't help but relate the dance to how she must be feeling. Going through something like the death of a parent. Seemingly alone. No one can really help deal with the pain. I have to admit that I cried a bit during the piece, overwhelmed by the emotion it caused me thinking about my friend and what she must be going through.
Again I ask you: If I gave you every bit of information regarding me, my friend, the dance we watched together, our chemical states, etc, would you be able to feel how we felt last night? Even now I must admit that if I had every propositional fact possible about my friend, her mother's fatal illness, and knew her even better than I did, it would be impossible for me to know exactly what she's going through.
My point is that there is an end to science. There is a chasm, an unbridgeable chasm, that science cannot cross when we go from the realm of propositions to the realm of humanity. Science simply cannot give us insight into how things feel, into how they effect us as meaning-seeking people. Science cannot help us grasp subjective reality through facts and data. So yes, science is useful and helpful and arguably even necessary, but it can never tell us everything. There will always be a gap between science's explanations of my friend's pain and my friend's pain from the subjective point of view. And to me, that's a good thing.
Now, if you know me at all, you'll know that I'm really going to resist statements like that. They're dehumanizing, hubristic, and ultimately (I believe) wrong. So after asking a few more questions to make sure I had his position right (he conceded that it's very possible that science will never figure everything out, but the initial point that everything is essentially explainable in terms of physical cause and effect relationships and that the God of "mystery" will get eeked out given enough time remains) and then I tried to defend a bigger God than that, or at least the possibility that the universe isn't composed of entirely of phenomena explainable in terms of descriptive propositions. If I can get that point across, I've at least made room for science and God to coincide without encroaching upon each others' territory too much.
So let me try to give a few examples that get at my intuitions.
Imagine I find someone who has NEVER encountered sadness in any way and then I give them a book containing every single proposition about the entirely physical phenomenon of depression. This book contains everything from the physical and chemical states that cause people to feel depressed to a list of actions that depressed people have been known to commit while depressed. The book has everything. Journal entries from depressed people, lists of famous people who have had chronic depression, etc, etc. Now I ask you this: Assuming that this person had never experienced any sort of sadness and she or he had then learned everything there is to know about depression, would she or he have any idea what it feels like to be depressed?
Or how about this one:
Yesterday I went to go see a production from the Alvin Ailey II dance company. They came to Springfield and put on a FANTASTIC show (which I got $10 student rush tickets to!). There was one piece in the middle entitled "Essence" which I believe tried to articulate using poetic movement how it feels to be trapped inside yourself with some monstrous issue. The dance was just one woman on a chair. She stayed with the chair the whole time, unable to break her attachment to it no matter how much pain it seemed to be causing her to be sitting there alone. She writhed, she struggled, she laughed, she cried, she even tried to compose herself and put on the good face, but all to no avail. It was a beautiful piece, and incredibly moving. Here's an excerpt from it that I found on youtube:
Anyway, I was watching this piece while sitting next to one of my very good friends whose mother passed away last semester. I blogged about it here, and you can read a bit about her experiences. While watching it, I couldn't help but relate the dance to how she must be feeling. Going through something like the death of a parent. Seemingly alone. No one can really help deal with the pain. I have to admit that I cried a bit during the piece, overwhelmed by the emotion it caused me thinking about my friend and what she must be going through.
Again I ask you: If I gave you every bit of information regarding me, my friend, the dance we watched together, our chemical states, etc, would you be able to feel how we felt last night? Even now I must admit that if I had every propositional fact possible about my friend, her mother's fatal illness, and knew her even better than I did, it would be impossible for me to know exactly what she's going through.
My point is that there is an end to science. There is a chasm, an unbridgeable chasm, that science cannot cross when we go from the realm of propositions to the realm of humanity. Science simply cannot give us insight into how things feel, into how they effect us as meaning-seeking people. Science cannot help us grasp subjective reality through facts and data. So yes, science is useful and helpful and arguably even necessary, but it can never tell us everything. There will always be a gap between science's explanations of my friend's pain and my friend's pain from the subjective point of view. And to me, that's a good thing.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Time Has Come...
to blog again. Not because I've had some life revelation, not because I feel a deeply ingrained need to express myself on a public forum, and not even because I feel like I have a whole lot to say. I'm starting again for two reasons. 1) I really need to stay in practice with my writing. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. 2) I miss my blogging community. It's a positive force in my life, so back to the grindstone I go. I'm not going to make any silly promises of "Oh, I'll be sure to blog every day for x days," or "I'm going to start a theme presentation that will keep me going for the next x weeks." I'll try to blog every morning since I have the time and I just want to follow my thoughts and see where they lead me, linguistic errors be damned.
Today I'll write about what I think is probably the biggest joy in my life as of late, which is my puppy, Yoko. Named after the infamous Yoko Ono (I wanted a name to do with the Beatles, but Lucy was too popular and Eleanor sounds strange for a dog), MY Yoko came into my life unexpectedly in late November of last year. A good friend of mine who is closely involved with one of the local shelters came to me one morning during class and said, "Hey, you wouldn't want to take a puppy we just rescued, would you?" Apparently it was close to euthanasia day at the pound and my friend took Yoko home with her (I'm not quite sure of the legality of that move, but what I don't know won't hurt me) to save her from certain death. Seeing as I have a fenced in backyard where I'm staying now, I agreed to hold onto Yoko. This is how our story began.
That day I came home to a small black puppy with a head three times too large for her body who enjoyed playing tug of war with her rope toy. My roommates and I weren't sure whether or not we were going to keep her - there was some disagreement between the three of us for the ensuing week or two on the issue - but that night sealed the deal for me. That night, you see, Yoko got VERY sick. She went from playful puppy to bedridden babe in about three hours. She had severe diarrhea and vomiting, so I took her to the vet the very next morning. The diagnosis: Poor Yoko had flat and round worms, kennel cough (think bronchitis for dogs), and - you guessed it - parvovirus. Parvo, the virus's shorthand name, is like dysentery for dogs. With out patient care, most dogs have a 35-50% survival rate. Yikes. And with all the other ailments draining her immune system, I feared the worst. Most people would have put her to sleep right then and there, but I'm a big softy. Her big brown eyes had stolen my heart and I was ready for the fight.
The next week was intense for me and my little labrapei (that's the name I came up for her breed. Half black lab half shar pei). She didn't eat anything for about eight days. She didn't move either. She just sat curled up in our laps all day long. Every few hours I would have to force feed her pills or small amounts of pedialyte, or a nutritional gel the vet gave me, but aside from that she just looked sad. The third day of parvo was the trough. She didn't sleep at all (which meant I didn't sleep at all) and she had a strong resemblance to one of those Ethiopian children you see on television who have no food. That morning, having not slept at all, I drove her to the vet as soon as it opened. I was ready for the vet to tell me that she needed to be put to sleep because she was doing so poorly, so that entire drive was heartbreaking for me. I sang James Taylor to her while she sat in my lap. I actually showed up an hour before the vet, so they let me sit in the waiting room with Yoko for an hour and they brought me coffee. I spent that entire hour holding her like a child and talking to her. I promised her lots of things about how happy I'd try to make her if she kept fighting, about how much fun we'd be together, and I assured her how much I loved her no matter what. It sounds sappy and silly, but it was a really strong experience for me.
Despite her appearance, the vet said she still had some fight in her. We pumped her full of fluids once again and I took her home to rest. The next day she turned the corner and started to slowly perk up, and it was all progress from there. Over the next few days, she started walking again, eating on her own, and having solid bowel movements. Again, it sounds silly, but you should have seen the smile on my face the first time she was able to eat on her own or even the first time she had solid poo. I'm officially hooked.
Since then, she grown exponentially (though she still hasn't quite grown into her ginormous head), learned all kinds of tricks, been potty trained, and just two days ago she learned to jump onto the bed for the first time. She's great for me. She gives me a reason to come home, something warm to hold onto while I watch movies, someone to snuggle with at night, and a constant playmate. You can see a few pictures to chronicle growth here. The first one is her at a few weeks old taken at the pound, the next one is her in December post-parvo (it was my Christmas card), and the last one is one I took this morning. She's only about halfway grown too!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Ft. Hood...
Thirteen individuals died and thirty-one were wounded at the shooting at Fort Hood. That means thirteen families have had the ultimate wound inflicted upon them. Thirteen mothers had their children torn from them. Thirteen fathers will watch their sons and daughters being lowered into the ground. And thirty-one families will be effected in ways they never could have imagined.
I want this to be kept in mind when we talk about Fort Hood. This idea should be in the foreground, on the tips of everyone's tongues at all times during this discussion. These were real people with real families who are experiencing real, inescapable, undeniable grief.
In the past week or so, I've heard different news organizations talk about this incident in different ways. Some of them haven't gotten past the idea I just mentioned. We're hearing news flashes about what Obama wants to do about it, about what Lieberman wants to do about it, about what the people want done about it. The BBC is reporting on it, and the world mourns with us over the deaths of soldiers on our own ground.
Perhaps we could have prevented it. The guy who committed the crime showed warning signs; he apparently talked to al Qaeda members via telephone and email. We knew about it. Maybe we can talk about how to prevent these kinds of things in the future. Maybe we can talk about what went wrong in this particular incident that made us do nothing in response to the warning signs he gave us. That might be an appropriate place to go with this discussion, and we're seeing it shift in that direction a bit.
What I've seen a lot of, sadly, is news organization using this terrible incident as fuel for their base. It's sensationalized, yes, like all other news stories are; however, I'm seeing that sensationalism turn into ignorance and fear-mongering like what we saw after 9/11. People are starting to blindly attack Islam again, talking about how violent and dangerous it is. They're beginning to turn this incident, one that thirteen families are going to be mourning for years to come, into another log on the fire of the crusade that we've been participating in for decades. It's become politicized, strategized, and mobilized to suddenly be some means to an end.
"It's Obama's fault!" I hear from Hannity and Limbaugh.
"Blame the Islamic extremists!" I hear from Beck.
I suppose this is my point: How does it reflect us as Americans if all we do with tragedies like this is turn them into propaganda for a party or a cause? We're all scrambling over how to use this event to drum up support for our presence in Afghanistan or attack our liberal "victim-loving" president, but thirteen families just want their children back. I see these actions as vulgar. It's repulsive. When are we going to stop being pundits and spinsters and start being human?
My two cents: Things like this are going to continue to happen across the globe until we can stop placing blame, stop going on crusades, stop marginalizing and ignoring people for our "causes" and start being compassionate, empathetic human beings towards each other.
I want this to be kept in mind when we talk about Fort Hood. This idea should be in the foreground, on the tips of everyone's tongues at all times during this discussion. These were real people with real families who are experiencing real, inescapable, undeniable grief.
In the past week or so, I've heard different news organizations talk about this incident in different ways. Some of them haven't gotten past the idea I just mentioned. We're hearing news flashes about what Obama wants to do about it, about what Lieberman wants to do about it, about what the people want done about it. The BBC is reporting on it, and the world mourns with us over the deaths of soldiers on our own ground.
Perhaps we could have prevented it. The guy who committed the crime showed warning signs; he apparently talked to al Qaeda members via telephone and email. We knew about it. Maybe we can talk about how to prevent these kinds of things in the future. Maybe we can talk about what went wrong in this particular incident that made us do nothing in response to the warning signs he gave us. That might be an appropriate place to go with this discussion, and we're seeing it shift in that direction a bit.
What I've seen a lot of, sadly, is news organization using this terrible incident as fuel for their base. It's sensationalized, yes, like all other news stories are; however, I'm seeing that sensationalism turn into ignorance and fear-mongering like what we saw after 9/11. People are starting to blindly attack Islam again, talking about how violent and dangerous it is. They're beginning to turn this incident, one that thirteen families are going to be mourning for years to come, into another log on the fire of the crusade that we've been participating in for decades. It's become politicized, strategized, and mobilized to suddenly be some means to an end.
"It's Obama's fault!" I hear from Hannity and Limbaugh.
"Blame the Islamic extremists!" I hear from Beck.
I suppose this is my point: How does it reflect us as Americans if all we do with tragedies like this is turn them into propaganda for a party or a cause? We're all scrambling over how to use this event to drum up support for our presence in Afghanistan or attack our liberal "victim-loving" president, but thirteen families just want their children back. I see these actions as vulgar. It's repulsive. When are we going to stop being pundits and spinsters and start being human?
My two cents: Things like this are going to continue to happen across the globe until we can stop placing blame, stop going on crusades, stop marginalizing and ignoring people for our "causes" and start being compassionate, empathetic human beings towards each other.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
History...
My African American Lit class has gotten me thinking a lot about history and the way it impacts our lives on an everyday level. Personally, I'm somewhat confused as to my own relationship to history, so I'd like to use this as a forum to work that struggle out.
The way I see it, we have two histories to relate to. The first is our personal history, which all of us have and cannot avoid. I am the youngest of three. My dad is a pastor and my mother is a nurse. There have been lots of different events and circumstances in my life that have shaped me to be the particular Mark that I am today. I've personally experience this kind of history and can reflect upon it and my relationship to it. For me, this is a fairly simple and unproblematic concept.
The second relationship to history is what really interests and perplexes me, however. I'm part of a culture. I live in a certain society at a certain time in history. While I understand the ramifications of how this effects my day-to-day life and has a PROFOUND impact on who I am, I fail to identify myself with it. It's a strange thought, but maybe I can illuminate it better by describing people who do identify with their cultural history.
African American writers, for example, spend a good deal of time focusing on how their cultural history shapes who they are. I'm reading Toni Morrison right now, and she seems to think that you cannot simply be an individual living in a society. You are a member of that society, and that society's history is your history which you must learn to deal with. Her characters have to learn what it means to be black, to have an oppressed and checkered history. I guess for a group who's history is a little more tangible in their daily life, I understand how this is relevant. Still, for me, I don't know.
My history is white-washed. George Washington cutting down the apple tree kinda stuff. It's a bunch of tall tales, myths, that never really happened but that we tell ourselves in order to justify our modern selves. Aside from that, I don't even know which history to look for. Am I an American? Am I European? Should I associate myself with the history of Great Britain as an Irish descendant? Exactly who I am is a little muddled and confusing, so exactly which history is "my" history is confusing as well.
I suppose on one level, people could say that it's important to understand how your history shapes you, but you don't have to personally identify with it. Currently, for example, if I were to personally identify myself as an American I'd feel nothing but ashamed of our actions. That's just me though. Thoughts? Comments? Reflections? I'd love to hear them!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Judgment...
I've been thinking about judgment a lot lately, about our rights to judge others and such. It makes me want to tell a story.
When I was in grade school, I got picked on a whole lot. I was tormented pretty mercilessly (grade school kids learn to torture long before they learn to be merciful, sadly) by what felt like every kid in the school for every reason they could find. I'm just starting to analyze and see how deeply these years have effected my personal growth as an adult and how much of that pain I still carry with me, but that's another post for another day.
What I want to convey first is how horrible this was to me as a child. I remember how much I hated everything about myself. I remember going shopping for clothes with my mom one day and crying in the dressing room because no matter what I tried on, I never looked cool enough. I remember the day after I got beat up on the playground by a kid begging my parents to not make me go back to school and face the ridicule of the moribund masses of my peers. There were lots of experiences like that. It was a hellish few years for me.
One of the kids who came after me the most was a little blond kid named Keith Baldwin. Keith was meaner to me than the rest which made me hate him the most. When he finally moved away my sixth grade year, I was completely relieved. "One less jerk to worry about," I thought. He moved to Jefferson City and I didn't hear a thing about him for a few years aside from the occasional line or two about how people missed him (which infuriated me) or about when people would go visit him. Then, one day in eighth grade, an email was circulated through my school. The teachers informed all of us that Keith and his little sister came home from school one day and the two of them were murdered by their mother. Their mother went insane and shot them to death and promptly turned the weapon on herself.
"Good," I thought. "One less jerk to worry about." When I thought that, it became apparent to me that I had some issues to work through.
Slowly, stories about how Keith's mom had literally tortured him leaked out. Friends would tell about how Keith's mom poured salt in Keith's eyes and stuff like that. It was demented. It took me years to think about it fully, but I began to realize that Keith probably didn't have the easiest time with life. He took that out on me. The older I get the more okay with it I am. As I think about it, most of the kids who made fun of me came from broken homes, single parent situations, abuse fathers, etc. Not that their actions against me are justified, but they're certainly more understandable and forgivable in that light.
The point is this, my friends: We're all products of our environments. Keith made fun of me because it's how he expressed his anguish. His friends followed suit. I'm a product of those actions too. Again, this doesn't make all of our actions acceptable or exempt us from responsibility, but it seems to lighten the load a bit.
I was talking to one of my friends about judgment in a Christian setting the other day while we were riding in the car. I ended up telling her my story about Keith and then asking her, "Was Keith a sinner? When Keith picked on me, can he be held responsible and judged for it?" You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but for me it illuminates something about the way a lot of us Christian people think and a lot about why people don't like us. We're quick to judge. We don't think a lot before we pass judgment. We don't realize that the evil deeds don't just crop up in this world. They're conditioned and created by other evil deeds. That makes me question a lot about what's traditionally thought of as "God's judgment," which inevitably is a euphemism for our judgment in God's name. I just want to put that out there. Maybe we'll all think a bit more before we pass judgment. Maybe we'll be a bit quicker to forgive next time.
When I was in grade school, I got picked on a whole lot. I was tormented pretty mercilessly (grade school kids learn to torture long before they learn to be merciful, sadly) by what felt like every kid in the school for every reason they could find. I'm just starting to analyze and see how deeply these years have effected my personal growth as an adult and how much of that pain I still carry with me, but that's another post for another day.
What I want to convey first is how horrible this was to me as a child. I remember how much I hated everything about myself. I remember going shopping for clothes with my mom one day and crying in the dressing room because no matter what I tried on, I never looked cool enough. I remember the day after I got beat up on the playground by a kid begging my parents to not make me go back to school and face the ridicule of the moribund masses of my peers. There were lots of experiences like that. It was a hellish few years for me.
One of the kids who came after me the most was a little blond kid named Keith Baldwin. Keith was meaner to me than the rest which made me hate him the most. When he finally moved away my sixth grade year, I was completely relieved. "One less jerk to worry about," I thought. He moved to Jefferson City and I didn't hear a thing about him for a few years aside from the occasional line or two about how people missed him (which infuriated me) or about when people would go visit him. Then, one day in eighth grade, an email was circulated through my school. The teachers informed all of us that Keith and his little sister came home from school one day and the two of them were murdered by their mother. Their mother went insane and shot them to death and promptly turned the weapon on herself.
"Good," I thought. "One less jerk to worry about." When I thought that, it became apparent to me that I had some issues to work through.
Slowly, stories about how Keith's mom had literally tortured him leaked out. Friends would tell about how Keith's mom poured salt in Keith's eyes and stuff like that. It was demented. It took me years to think about it fully, but I began to realize that Keith probably didn't have the easiest time with life. He took that out on me. The older I get the more okay with it I am. As I think about it, most of the kids who made fun of me came from broken homes, single parent situations, abuse fathers, etc. Not that their actions against me are justified, but they're certainly more understandable and forgivable in that light.
The point is this, my friends: We're all products of our environments. Keith made fun of me because it's how he expressed his anguish. His friends followed suit. I'm a product of those actions too. Again, this doesn't make all of our actions acceptable or exempt us from responsibility, but it seems to lighten the load a bit.
I was talking to one of my friends about judgment in a Christian setting the other day while we were riding in the car. I ended up telling her my story about Keith and then asking her, "Was Keith a sinner? When Keith picked on me, can he be held responsible and judged for it?" You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but for me it illuminates something about the way a lot of us Christian people think and a lot about why people don't like us. We're quick to judge. We don't think a lot before we pass judgment. We don't realize that the evil deeds don't just crop up in this world. They're conditioned and created by other evil deeds. That makes me question a lot about what's traditionally thought of as "God's judgment," which inevitably is a euphemism for our judgment in God's name. I just want to put that out there. Maybe we'll all think a bit more before we pass judgment. Maybe we'll be a bit quicker to forgive next time.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Two Things...
First, I'd like a bit of discussion and hopefully some thoughtful replies. Second, some awesome entertainment.
So firstly, I've been pondering in my head the extent to which difference breeds hatred. Particularly in the political realm, I find myself having a very difficult time learning that those who are different than me have validity. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've thought out my arguments or that I'm just an egotistical jerk (as I often can be without my knowledge), but when it comes to people who have different political opinions, specifically to people who are staunch conservatives, I find myself having a difficult time not letting that get difference get in the way I view them as humans.
Example.
I have a friend whom I love deeply. She's a beautiful person who cares about the same things that I do in praxis, but she recently confessed to me that she's an intense conservative. She thinks laissez faire capitalism is the best possible system, socialist nations are filled with unhappy and unhealthy people (she also equated socialism with communism), and that Regan's economic policies were the best thing this country has ever seen. As much as I love her, this is a pretty glaring difference in our perspectives and I just don't know how to 1) communicate with her at all about it and 2) not let it get in the way of how I see her as a human being. For me, these issues touch on my faith in God, my love of my neighbor, and everything I think is wrong with humanity today. How do you do it, guys? How do you not let difference breed hatred? I'm assuming it starts with a strong and healthy dose of humility, though I'm wary of getting to the point that I delegitimize myself in the process, but then what? Yikes!
Okay, now for some promised entertainment. To my friend who is Blogging Incognito, I think your son might particularly enjoy these videos.
So firstly, I've been pondering in my head the extent to which difference breeds hatred. Particularly in the political realm, I find myself having a very difficult time learning that those who are different than me have validity. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've thought out my arguments or that I'm just an egotistical jerk (as I often can be without my knowledge), but when it comes to people who have different political opinions, specifically to people who are staunch conservatives, I find myself having a difficult time not letting that get difference get in the way I view them as humans.
Example.
I have a friend whom I love deeply. She's a beautiful person who cares about the same things that I do in praxis, but she recently confessed to me that she's an intense conservative. She thinks laissez faire capitalism is the best possible system, socialist nations are filled with unhappy and unhealthy people (she also equated socialism with communism), and that Regan's economic policies were the best thing this country has ever seen. As much as I love her, this is a pretty glaring difference in our perspectives and I just don't know how to 1) communicate with her at all about it and 2) not let it get in the way of how I see her as a human being. For me, these issues touch on my faith in God, my love of my neighbor, and everything I think is wrong with humanity today. How do you do it, guys? How do you not let difference breed hatred? I'm assuming it starts with a strong and healthy dose of humility, though I'm wary of getting to the point that I delegitimize myself in the process, but then what? Yikes!
Okay, now for some promised entertainment. To my friend who is Blogging Incognito, I think your son might particularly enjoy these videos.
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