Tagged: relationships

Great Comebacks, Too Late

I sometimes come up with amazing comebacks, too late to use. Oh well.

The first that comes to mind was once a scammer left a voicemail about legal action blah blah blah. Since I was divorced and always fearing some new bullshit from my ex, I called the number back. The dude proceeded to deliver the scam flawlessly but something just wasn’t right. Again, since I was divorced, I knew legal things didn’t happen quickly, or need to. So I finally just told him that I didn’t believe him. He seemed to have enjoyed being called out, just concluding, “Okay, Mr. Smart Guy, take your chances,” or some such thing.

Only later did I wish I said, “You sound black.” (He did. And I’m certain he was. But even if I’m wrong, it would’ve been hilarious.)

Tonight, another zinger came to mind only too late.

I have been sharing with folks at work (healthcare) that I am enjoying, if three years after the trend, cold showers. Well, this elicits all sorts of responses, mostly enjoyable to engage. One such response was, “I bet it opens your pores.”

My too little, too late response is, “‘Pores open?’ I was only aware of five senses.”

So funny. Or would’ve been.

The Reunion Will Be Beautiful

Back in college, over twenty years ago now, in a Political Science class, we read a book called The Origins of Major War. As usual in college courses, we had to write a paper afterward. My paper had a killer thesis.

You see, one of the defining traits of “major war” is that the countries which are labeled “hegemonic” (essentially a synonym of “major”) are involved. That, of course, is circular, but not weakening. America was/is hegemonic. So my thesis, still startlingly profound, was, “The United States will be in the next Major War.”

Can you feel it? Wow. Just amazing. So true, and so provocative.

What role will we play? Defender of all that is good? Do we begin it? Do we end it? Read on, we must, the reader surely concludes.

Well, I am back to more reading on this Sunday and have similarly struck another mega-epic-super-provocative-wow-factor-bursting-standard-breaking thesis. Ready?

The reunion will be beautiful.

Life right now is not beautiful. We do not like life.

There are too many indicators to list. It will suffice to say you don’t like me. And I don’t particularly like you. This is funny because you don’t know me and I don’t know you. But it’s true nonetheless. Life is a mess. Life is not beautiful. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain lying.

But, but! The reunion? Maybe not soon enough, but any reunion will be beautiful.

How do I know? And how can you, likewise, be certain?

Because union is a defining quality of beauty. No different than major wars are fought by major countries, the re-union will be be-autiful—otherwise, it ain’t either. No beauty, no union. No (re)union, no beauty. Feel me?

Hold on a little longer, folks. No need to languish in uncertainty over the question of the future, ie, “Am I really going to have to withdraw from our BS society to be happy?” Just do what you have to do for now.

The reunion will be beautiful.

PS – Thanks, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

With Great Books, It Happens Every Time

February 2, 2023 CE I began the fourth reading from the third volume of The Great Ideas Program, which, as longtime readers know, is intended to be used alongside the voluminous Great Books of the Western World sets. This fourth reading was the introductory salvo of Nichomachus of Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic, written sometime around 100 AD.

Today, just now, after four long months and many fits and starts—not to mention giving serious consideration to giving up the reading of such dry and pointless prose in favor of books that align with my intellectual habits—I concluded the reading.

And I feel great. I feel like I have a new lease on life.

Before we address whether it is the coffee, which I confess I am running high on or not, I want to clarify that I actually have a new understanding of early math and this new understanding is actually useful to me. (As it would be to anyone.)

The understanding and its usefulness goes like this, “Life is huge.” Followed immediately by, “It cannot be exhausted, used up, depleted, drained, found out, solved, or emptied.”

But you, the driver, have to challenge yourself. You have to read books. And I say, “Start with good books. No, start with the Great Books of the Western World. You will not be disappointed.”

I have lived with the rule-of-thumb that I’m “not gonna read any book that’s newer than 100 years old until I have caught up” for nearly 20 years. I haven’t adhered to it perfectly, but it has served me well and I heartily recommend it.

Best wishes.

Christian Twistings 2: The Truer Question Behind “Who Created God?”

When I hear, “Who created god?” asked, I twist that into what I believe is the truer question, “Why do I believe life should make sense?” Or, worded another way, “Some parts of life make sense, and we value that. (This too makes sense.) Why doesn’t life as a whole make sense?”

Don’t get me wrong, “Who created god?” causes me to almost want to hear Christian apologetics answer. But these days, I prefer to get to the gospel as quick as possible. So I plan to twist and gain credibility with the twist. And then proceed.

Short answer to the above is, of course, a question.

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“Why doesn’t life as a whole make sense, when the various parts of life make sense?”

“Let me ask you, ‘Does it need to make sense?’ And by ‘need’ I mean that you’re x amount of years into this life, and it hasn’t made sense yet (or did it used to and now it doesn’t?). So it seems to me that you are (and we all are) able to live without this ‘making sense’ issue/feeling solved. But I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So, I ask again, ‘Does it need to make sense?’ Because if it doesn’t need to, then the answer to both your original question and my ‘truer’ restatement of your question is, ‘I don’t know, but I do know that the Bible writers don’t concern themselves with ‘making sense’ of life. Their concern is your eternal salvation.”

I Had It All Wrong

I used to think of emotions, instincts, logic, reason, and other types of decision making as choices. I had it all wrong.

Now, I don’t know if there is a hierarchy, as in, “Reason is better than emotion,” for example. I don’t know if there is ultimate worth, as in, “At least I can say that reason guided my life.” I cannot say for sure that these traits are building blocks, as in, “Only after mastering emotion can you learn to reason.”

What I do know now, and know for certain, is that for those who do not act upon reason, it is not because they are avoiding reason. It is because they cannot reason. For these folks, using reason is as unavailable as flight is to a jack rabbit. Sure, they might end up “reasoning”, but they certainly didn’t flap their wings.

This is unfortunate.

But it is not the end of the story.

Life goes on. That’s the end of the story.

What shall be done in the time remaining? How should one communicate with those without reason? How should one live with them?

It calls to mind a line from Tolstoy. He wrote something like, “I could not follow any of the two women’s conversation. But I knew it had to be about something because it was unending.”

Next blog: What to do if your wife is happy everywhere but at home, and then invites her non-English speaking mother to stay at said home with no departure date?

Seeing A Bald Eagle From Above

After hurriedly grilling hamburgers for the fam and eating, I loaded them up in our Expedition, which sports a bald eagle license plate. My stepson, A-, had a “spring sing”, or some such nonsense, and as these events are rare, he wanted me to wear the t-shirt he had given me a few years back. The image on the shirt is George Washington flying on the back of a bald eagle.

Get the picture?

No, no you don’t. Because I haven’t told you the best part.

Earlier in the day—same day!—I had flown a training flight where we soared at higher altitudes than typical for a helicopter, I’m talking two and three thousand feet above the ground.

“Whoa!” I thought to myself as we maneuvered to miss a large feathered friend.

Then I saw white. Not at the front, but the tail feathers. Or I thought I did. It was turning away and down. So I kept looking.

Sure enough, white tail feathers. Then finally I saw the unmistakable white head with the yellow beak.

A bald eagle from above.

Have words been invented to describe the feeling?

“Unnatural” comes to mind. But that carries too much negativity.

There is nothing negative about soaring with bald eagles. I’ll keep thinking about it. We need a word to describe it.

And on the positive side, I finally heard one speak.

“Pete? I thought that was you.”

I guess for a pilot, the feeling is “natural.” It’s why pilots fly.

Two More Bald Eagle Encounters

The first one was nearly one month ago, but I haven’t found time to record it.

Here’s what I know. Of late I have been struggling with consistency. I know giving 100% really sets me apart, but I also have come to believe it is exhausting. So I don’t. I turn on and turn off at my choosing. I don’t know why I do this. It has been a long time since I have given 100% all day long and I think I have built up an unnatural fear that I will tire out. And I don’t like being tired.

But the bald eagle has got me rethinking my stance.

I saw this particular creature soaring over the roadway on a drive back from Wisconsin to Minnesota, as usual. But the singular thing I noticed this time was how, while riding the wind in what first appeared as a leisurely, effortless manner, the eagle’s neck was in fact strained forward and down as it hunted.

As a fellow rider of the wind, I have special insight into the three dimensional abilities of flight. The eagle and I can just descend a few inches and get a closer look, no neck strain. No effort. (If we wanted to.)

But no. This raptor isn’t looking for leisure. He was looking for food. And all creation knew it. Think of it. Neck strain instead of descending. Wow. What a lesson.

The second encounter was just last night. It had similar traits to one a few months back. Remember the headless eagle? Yep, that’s what happened again to me. I saw what looked like a brown box in the middle of the divided highway. With the new Metallica album blasting from the car speakers, I was already in a good mood.

\m/ Smile as it burnz to the grounnn-dah/The perfeck don’ wann chuu arounnn-dah! \m/

And then it happened. Surely before I would’ve suspected the blessed bird could’ve heard and singled out the music coming from my car stereo as I approached speedily, this apparent brown box’s head(!) popped up and look towards me. I say “looked towards me”, not “looked at me”. No, he wasn’t offering interest to me. He just recognized good music. The look in his eye as I passed was, “Rock on, Good Citizen.”

Long Live X-Men!

I started Logan again the other day. I immediately felt abashed for ever suggesting it was normalizing violence against children. The first time I watched it, I apparently didn’t pay attention to the words/story.

Before I had a chance to finish Logan, I had an opportunity to watch X-Men Apocalypse and found it extremely entertaining. More so than the first viewing for sure.

Last night I finally had time to finish Logan and it did not disappoint.

Biographical note: I grew up on the cartoon and would fight my mom tooth and nail on Saturday mornings when it always happened to be time to clean right when the episode started. Did she really not know? The cartoon began at the same time every week. Just let a boy finish that one cartoon and he’ll clean his room just fine! But no, it was always as the opening of the show came on, “Peter! Time to clean your room. Enough tv for one Saturday!”

Batman will always be my favorite comic book character. But the X-Men are a close second, Wolverine leading the way.

Logan’s best scene, insofar as it relates to character development, is when the little girl mutant holds his hand in an effort to comfort him when Professor X dies and Logan rips his hand away in disgust. Rage right up to the end. That kind of consistency makes for compelling storytelling. Way to go, folks. Keep it up.

Follow-Up

Yesterday’s post, which I used to criticize some mom’s BS claim that she was “praising God in every situation, good and bad” after the shooting, garnered a welcome two commenters. Today I wanted to publish my response to the second commenter because I like it. Enjoy!

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My declaring that this person’s reaction wasn’t sincere is not only an accurate assessment, but necessary. I’ll prove it to you. 

Because I wrote this little blog, you related, “…because it’s a Christian school.”

Does any part of scripture ever suggest Christians or Christian institutions, or the People of God in general (Jews/Christians throughout scripture) are on this planet with any special protection? No, no it does not. Never.

Is this “no special protection even though we’re on the winning team” a problem? Nope. It’s good theology. (Literate theology.)

So some lady offers a BS/superficial response, I truthfully call it out. Now you truthfully respond. Let’s keep the truth coming.

Do you actually believe we should praise god that murder occurred? No, no you don’t. So just say it. “God, I love ya, but I’m not in the mood for praising you right now. Not when these kids are getting killed. Not when these freaks are killing kids. I’m confused. I thought a Christian school would be safe. Why won’t you protect even a Christian school? You have my attention Lord. Answer!”

Biblically Informed School Shooting Reaction

Apparently one mom who spoke to the news has said, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

I get it. Believe me, I get it. Many evangelicals are told to use these moments to point people to God, to tell people about Jesus.

And then there is the whole worry, “I said something publicly—will I have sounded churchy enough??” that many Christians live with.

We also can’t deny the idea that many folks are genuinely dumbstruck when evil hits close to home—especially when all along they thought they were supernaturally protected, either.

And let us not forget that communication is hard. Some big hearts and repentant worms are genuinely befuddled when the microphone comes their way. So this mother of apparently healthy kids (just talking to investigators still) rattles off something as stupid and trite sounding as, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

Finally, this is a news story, a story meant to provoke and add hype—no matter the situation. It has obviously worked on me because here I am typing away. So I concede it is possible this mom is a terrible sample of modern Christian reaction to school shootings.

However, she is actually right in line with what I have all be hearing and reading after mass shootings for the last several years even from folks I know. So I think we can count her reaction as typical.

Here’s the thing. It isn’t honest.

Pop! Pop! Pop pop pop!! Blood. Screams.

“We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

Speak from the heart, people! Pray!!

David, in recorded scripture that you all cherish soooo much, said, “Look and answer me, O Yahweh my God; Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death…”

Now we can debate whether suicide is the threat (“Answer or I do it!”), or just plainly stating that the enemy is about to kill him (You gonna do something here?), but the point remains, David had no issue speaking from the heart.

That was Psalm 13. Psalm 94 has, “O Yahweh, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth!”

Or “Kill ‘em all!” as Metallica might phrase it.

I don’t mind sharing here that my “prayer” since Sandy Hook got my attention has pretty much been—with surprising consistency—“My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”

In 2012, I didn’t know “my god” by name. After conversion to Christianity, I now specifically call to mind the god of the Bible, whether Yahweh/Jesus as the antecedent to “my god”. But in every case, the sequence is 1. School shooting. 2. “My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”

And that’s enough. Enough for me. And enough for Him.

Praising God for a school shooting? Gimme a break. No one believes that shit.