What my father taught me.

I didn't realize it at the time, but my father taught me a lot of the things that I was ever going to need in life. He didn't sit me down and lecture me about them, he just always did things a certain way. Leadership by example is what they call it today.

One of the first rules he taught me was that if you give your word, you bloody well keep it. My father is one of the most trustworthy people I have ever had the good fortune to know. When he told somebody that he would be someplace, he was there, even if he had to walk. If Dad said that he would pay somebody for something, it was paid, on time, and gladly. I suspect he is one of the few people who still believe that a promise made on a handshake is just as binding as anything on paper.

Another or my father's rules for life is that you always treat any female, regardless of age or social station as a lady. This wasn't really explained in any way. It just got ingrained in me that you were always polite to a lady, until she proved herself otherwise. Doors are to be held open, jackets are to be helped on with, things like that. Now, a lot of that training came from my mother, but Dad always backed it up.

The rule that he most definitely taught me was that a man always takes care of the tools he works with each day. He has always been very careful about cleaning out paint brushes and making sure his saw did not get rusty. He makes tools last far longer than your average guy. It shows respect for the tools that allow you to make a living. Many is the time I've taken extra care with something that I use, be it kitchen equipment or a paint brush, and gotten odd looks from coworkers. I just hate to see a tool misused or carelessly thrown about.

My father taught me about commitment, honesty and respect.

Why don't these things take until we grow up a bit?

Time travels

Ever ask yourself, "Where did the time go?" You may have noted more than once that I've used that phrase, or something to that effect in this blog. Time seems to slip away in a blur, now and then, okay, frequently. If you aren't paying attention, whole days and weeks can go by, and you missed something.

From a strictly quantum physics point of view, I think time goes outward, towards the direction of galactic expansion. If one could point to a place and say, "The universe began here," then we could as easily say that time began then, and has moved outward along with the stars and galaxies. Given the speed at which the universe is calculated to be expanding, time really does fly, fast.

Let's think for a moment about how we define time. The world we live in has three basic dimensions; length, width and depth. Once you have those, you can have motion through them. From that motion, we take the fourth dimension, time. Otherwise known as how long it take to move from one point of the spacial dimensions to another. Now, given the four dimensions that we have just defined, there are many more possible, but let's try to keep it simple.

This also explains how time can be relative, depending on who is doing the measuring. It takes a person with smaller strides much longer to get to one point than it takes a person with a longer stride to cover the same distance. What to you or me feels like a mere minute, could, to a mouse feel like an hour.

Then again, we have decided, in our human way, to standardize time, based on the units of the year, month, week and day. Beyond that, we are obsessed with breaking it down still more.

I think the trick to a more peaceful life, is to get away from defining time beyond the day level. Sure, we have to know the hour of certain events in our lives, but defining ourselves by where we spend our time is a mistake, I believe. The day will go on whether you stop to watch the sunset or not. It will go on even if you take time to write that letter to your grandmother, or decide that the carpet has to be vacuumed now.

Time travels outward, away from us. Maybe, if we paid more attention to it, we could get the most out of it.

The New World Order

I was reading a story the other day, and there were some references to the Holocaust and the clan. It is hard to believe, in this day and age, that there are still pockets of Nazis and other racist, fascist groups out there. Did a pile of people somehow miss the fact that we are well into the first decade of the 21st century?

It's a little hard for me to come to terms with the entire concept of "the master race". While I was growing up, it was always pointed out to me that there was only one race, the human one. We lived in a small town, so ethnic diversity was a little hard to come by, and prejudice was more on a socio-economic level. When I first started learning about segregation and the genocides of the past, it all just made me so sick.

I do agree, sometimes, that there needs to be a new world order. However, it cannot be based on exclusivity. The only way a civilization can survive is to take the best of its parts, and incorporate them into the whole. Where as Hitler and the Apartheid government of South Africa sought to eliminate the "pollution of the pure race", I think they had it backwards.

The world can never be whole so long as one group of people feels it has the right to be in charge of everything. Wisdom is knowing that you will never be everything, and that supporting one another is the way to get things done. That applies in genetics as well as political endeavours. When you try to breed out the "perfect human" what you wind up with is usually a genetic anomaly or a person lacking defences against disease. Look at the royal families of 19th century Europe. They in bred for so long, they had problems with hemophilia and similar disorders.

No, in my version of the new world order, there would be no more attempts to separate the ethnic groups. Marriage of any couple that loved each other would be encouraged. Eventually, genetics would produce a group of humans with all of the advantages of each background. Sure, there will always be problems with the evolution of the human form, but best to spread the genetic net than fish from a single line.

We don't need a "master race", we need a guardian race. In centuries to come, humans will evolve to be the species that cares for this planet, keeping it safe from the ravages that we currently inflict upon it. We will learn to harness resources to care for ourselves without damaging the ecosystem. Our population will find its balance with what the world can sustain. We will learn to work together toward what is truly best for our civilization.

It's a choice, we either learn and grow, or die off fighting over things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things.

I choose to grow.

Medicine vs. Faith

Every now and then you hear stories in the news about children being given medical treatments by court order. Their parents disapprove of the treatment in question on religious grounds. They feel that God will save their child if it is His will. Man is not meant to interfere.

I beg to differ with that argument.

There is an old joke about a woman in a flood, who sits on her roof praying. A bus for evacuation comes, but she declines the ride, saying that God would save her. A good man in a boat comes along and offers to take her off of her roof. Again, she passes on the offer, saying that God will spare her if He is so willing. Finally, the water is up to her neck and rescue workers in a helicopter try to lift her off of the roof. She turns them away, and drowns. When she gets to the pearly gates, she asks God why she wasn't saved. He simply stares at her and say, "I sent you a bus, a boat and a helicopter. All you had to do was take my hand."

It seems to me that we have to meet faith half way. A Divine creator surely would give somebody here the skills that are needed to help us in our hour of need. By refusing treatment, are these parents not turning away from the will of God? The Universe has gifted doctors and scientist with knowledge and ability for the extension and maintenance of life.

I agree that at present, there are boundaries we are not meant to cross. Life was designed and evolves according to a plan of its own. Tampering with that plan has lead to problems of a high order. One day we may have the knowledge and the maturity as a species to guide the design evolution, but not yet. Today, we would only breed horrors.

The point of my argument still stands. Why would a benign Creator give man the skills and knowledge to improve life, if it were not meant to be used. Satan would not give us the ability to improve life, so that argument doesn't wash. No, I think it is safe to say that medical advancement is the hand that God extends to us, so that we might live to carry out His work.

Opinions?

The DaVince Code and questioning faith

I finally got on the bandwagon and read The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown. What you have on the surface is a very exciting adventure and mystery tale. Brown packs a lot of events into one twenty-four hour span, enough to keep a reader on the edge of his seat for several hours. It was very hard to put the book down, once begun.
The problem comes when people take a fictional story set in a real place, and begin to think of it as more. Opus Dei, a very real organization, the Catholic Church, and various other groups were quick to take offence. They called the book an outrageous case of slander. Opus Dei even has a written statement on their website, rebutting claims they allege Mr. Brown made in the book.
In point of fact, the author has accused no one of wrong doing. His story used characters set within a fictional version of church, sect and police force to carry through the plot. They chose to take it all out of the context of a story.
Faith, particularly of the religious kind, is dangerous in that fashion. The instant adherents to an ideology see anything that conflicts with that belief, they are up in arms. Of course, where pitchforks and torches were the tools in the past, today it is the Internet and the legal system. There is a campaign of information and debunking, and if at all possible, law suits, to go with anything that questions the status quo. No where is this so common as in the realm of religion and pseudo science.
I bring up pseudo science for a reason. True scientific advancement relies on the testing of theory. That's why it is still the theory of evolution, because there hasn't been enough testing time. (Evolution is a slow process.) We can safely accept the idea as fact, from the evidence we have so far, be we do not call it a law. The same holds true for the theory of relativity. In the world of scientific discovery, nothing is law until it can be proven repeatedly. Pseudo science makes claims and then refuses to have those claims tested. It is expected that people will believe and invest.
Religious faith requires blind acceptance of ideas. This isn't a bad thing, when those ideas are about morals, the meaning of our lives and abstracts. It is when religion demands that we believe something about history, or the physical universe around us that we get into trouble. History is written from a personal point of view, and is thereby flawed, inaccurate. We can trace lineage back to the times of Christ and Mohammad, but we cannot say anything definitive about them beyond the physical evidence of records.
In his books, Dan Brown had used historical groups and individuals as the basis for a good fictional tale. The minute you try to put that into the real world, you open up a can of worms that even now hasn't been closed.
I am not personally a religious man. I do not attend any regular worship, though I do some work for a parish that my mother-in-law attends services with each week. I am, however, a man of faith. I believe in a force that many refer to as God, that created everything that we know. I believe that the truth of our existence is out there, waiting for us. When we are wise enough, we will discover the answers to all of our questions. The universe is merely waiting for us to grow enough to understand.
Science and religion have been enemies, when they struggle with the same questions. That they choose to work at odds with each other is evidence of our immaturity as a race. Faith and Reason are the base pair of intellectual life. Neither works without the other. A person can only go so far on one foot, and he or she can only go so far on faith or deductive reasoning alone.
Edison once compared Faith and Science to a pair of dynamos that he was working with. Unless perfectly balanced, the system didn't work. When in harmony, the power flowed smoothly. Life is all about balance. Male and female. Work and rest. Faith and reason.
Do not ignore the ideas that come from a fictional tale, but do not accept them blindly either.

Writing and theololgy

How is it that characters can take over when you start writing? Everyone likes to think that it is a God-like position, writing a story. In my experience, there is no control to be had. I've written three fan fictions and am currently working on the fourth. I might get three or four paragraphs on paper (I still use pen and paper to get going. Composing at the keyboard isn't me. I am SO thankful for recycling.) before the characters take over and do their thing, and I'm just along for the ride.
This leaves me with a rather nagging and worrisome question. What if the Universe was created, and then just kind of had to go its own way? Let's take the existence of God as a given, for the time being, and further assume that he created all that we know, like an author writing a book. If the characters have taken over the whole endeavor, what is the end result going to look like?
When I am writing, things usually work themselves out. The people have defined characters that make them behave in certain predictable ways. I merely give them a situation at the start, and they then resolve it in their own way.
In a situation like this, are we capable of making the right decisions? Story plots are relatively simple compared to real life, and they tend to come only two or three at a time. Life comes at you all at once.
I just hope the Author of our story doesn't develop writer's block.

Hope

Yesterday's post was a diatribe on the topic of apathy, the lack of caring by a person for the others about them or society at large.
Let's look on the other side of the fence today. Even where you find apathy, there is always the chance to find hope. Where there is even one person who can see the world around him or her, there is the chance for change.
I have begun to see a lot of hope for the world our children will create from what we leave them. Children are learning about the mistakes that we have made, and learning from them. We may have been slow at first, to see the signs of what man has done to the world, but now that the ball is rolling, things will be done to make amends at a quickly increasing rate.
Twenty years ago, who ever heard of recycling? Now, every home does some part in conserving resources. We are creating newer, cleaner products every day, because people can see, and demand that companies give them that option. Sometimes it takes a little economic push to get people to overcome the inertia of the way they have always done things. Now, we care, and all sides of our society are feeling the push.
I begin to see the economy in a better light, despite what the news says about recessions. We are learning to do more with less. I have high hopes that the new industries of waste recycling, environmentally friendly energy and telecommunication (beyond the marvels that we have now) will eventually make a world where all of us can put our talents to best use, and not have to worry about where that next meal is coming from.
I can even foresee a day when war has run it's course. Violence may long be a part of us, we descended from hunters after all, but we will get past that. As harming others no longer gets us what we desire in this world, and the differences between us grow smaller, what would be the advantage of trying to destroy? Religious fundamentalism is the last thing that the world will go to war over. Even that will become too weak a reason to kill, in a few generations time.
By way of example, I give you the Protestant/Catholic battles of northern Ireland. It was thought that neither side would ever give up that battle, until one side had wiped the other off the landscape. Fighting has given way to talking out differences, and realization that there is more in common. The last generation of street warriors howl, knowing that the end is near. I predict the same for the Islamic Fundamentalists and the extreme right-wing Christian movements. We might have to listen to them whine, but in a few generations, they well go out, not with a bang of bombs, but a whimper of old men who did not get their way.
The world gives us glimpses of what it can be, if only we open our eyes and do what we know to be right. When each of us does that, there is hope. Every child born could be the one who makes that hope a reality. Does our salvation walk among us even now?

Apathy

This is a letter I wrote to the Pastor of the church that I volunteer for. I thought that it might be of interest to some of you.

Good morning Pastor,
Yesterday you brought up a very interesting subject, and I am afraid that I brushed it off rather lightly, with a flippant remark and then a very simplistic answer. You were quite right to think about the root causes of apathy, and I have been doing so since that conversation.
Whole books and internet threads (if you are familiar with the concept) have been written discussing the way society and individuals become apathetic towards their communities and fellow man. It would be a long conversation (at least seven pots of coffee) indeed for us to even make a dent into the topic.
Without a context to put your question in, I have thought of a few things about the cause of apathy in today's society.
As I said, where the individual is concerned, a lot of apathy stems from the way we are raised. When a young child is not encouraged to take a part in any kind of decision making, or helping others, they develop a personality that believes that everything will be taken care of for them. We, as parents and family, have to lead by example, and show the next generation HOW to care. You have done so, to a great extent within the family of your Parish, as seen by the results you have garnered for the Foodbank.
Another cause of apathy among people is the belief that we cannot make a difference. We ask ourselves, "What is the point of one vote? I'm only one person, so what can I do?" You gave the example in your sermon of the "ripple effect". That is what life is all about, and why each one of us is put on this earth.
When I was a boy, my cousin Ashley died of SIDS before the age of three. I asked myself then about the value of a life, it could be taken from us so quickly. In time, my Faith answered that even in her short time with us, Ashley had made her mark on those around her. There is no such thing as an untimely death, Pastor, only one that goes unnoticed by the majority. I firmly believe that my cousin and her older sister (who died in a tragic house fire) had both fulfilled their mission here on earth, and so God took them back to Himself.
Excuse me a moment, as I always cry still to think of the loss of Tara Dawn. There was so much I had yet to share with her.
Anyway, all life serves to affect the life around it. As Buddha said, all things are connected. You cannot take one piece out of the puzzle, one thread from the tapestry without destroying the beautiful picture that God has woven. Even as we care for one life, we care for the whole of creation.
Today, we have a whole other set of causes for apathy. We are brought up to "mind our own business". We shy away form our duty to the Universe for fear of hurt, both physical and emotional. All of us are guilty of saying, "That has nothing to do with me, it is somebody else's job."
People value their independence very highly, and we are brought up, rightly, to respect that value. What happens when we take that respect beyond reason? Eventually we start to turn a blind eye toward the needs of our neighbours. As they suffer, we walk by and say, "It isn't my business to interfere." When we see a bully picking on a smaller child, we only too often say, "Let the kid stick up for himself." It is high time that we took note of our neighbour's plight. The fate of mankind is the business of all of mankind. Just as Jacob Marley declared to Ebeneezer Scrooge.
In a world that is so full of war, pain and death, we are quick to turn away from the things we see around us. It is easier and "safer" to keep our eyes on the home and hearth. We live now in a world where we have to have laws to protect people who try to help within their means, because they will be sued at the drop of a hat. The "Good Samaritan" law is a prime example of attempting to easy the apathy of society. When you have to legislate good works, you know there is a problem.
We would hope that all of us have faith in both God and our fellow man. Unfortunately, we rely too much on higher authorities. It is the job of the government to take care of things. We somehow expect God to solve our problems with no input from us. The Lord only helps those who help themselves. Beyond that, God often sends His help in the form of our fellow man. Many is the guardian angel has appeared in my life in the guise of family, friends and complete strangers. In our turn, we must act as the angel sent in another's time of need.
Apathy is a very intense subject. In my psychology studies, we didn't have time to do much with it. It is something we each have to grapple with on an individual basis. Only when we tackle our own shortcomings can we ever hope to enrich the society around us.
Please forgive the long-winded nature of this e-mail, but you gave me great food for thought, and fodder for several blog posts.

Your friend,
Joe

And then it dawned

I was up rather late reading last night, as usual, when I had something of an epiphany. It occurred to me that, regardless of where I am and my state in life, I will always have something to offer. It may not seem much at the time, but even the little things can make the largest difference.
Even my blog is something to contribute. In as much as it gets read by a few people around me.
When I was working for the Pastor, I realized that even the small jobs that I do just for the sake of doing them mean something to somebody. That actually came home yesterday, when I worked alone at the church, because the Pastor had to be away. It's all about making the lives around you just a little better.
I may never raise a child, or save a life in some dramatic fashion, but just being there when I am needed My path will find me, not the other way around.

Missed purposes

I spent the better part of last night wondering if maybe I somehow missed my calling. Which isn't to say that I have any clue what I should have been doing with my life by now. There is just this nagging little suspicion that I made a wrong turn somewhere, and the job I was put on this planet to do, got lost along the way.
The thing of it is, if I had made a different turn at most key points, I never would have found my wife. Granted, I would never have know that, but now that I do, I couldn't think of any other path.
Is it possible to go back and figure out where you were meant to wind up? We all say that we would do things differently, knowing what we know now. The problem with that idea is that time only flows one direction. Even if it could reverse, the physics would prevent you from ever remembering how things turned out the first time around. The scars in our brain tissue that form our memories would be wiped away as everything else reversed.
That might be a little bit hard to picture.
Think of it like this, our days are like words and pictures drawn on a blackboard in a school. We start (at least in the English language) on the left side of the board, and write to the opposite side. If we were to reverse time, letters would be lifted from the board and the chalk redeposited on the stick.
Whoa, that was deep.
What I have been trying, in my usual round-about way to say, is that there was a job that I was supposed to do when I was born, some way that my life was supposed to affect something. While there is no proof of it, that work feels incomplete to me, somehow. It would be so much easier if our lives came with instruction manuals.
Then again, most guys would never read theirs anyway.

Ministry

As some of you may know, I do some work for the Pastor (I always capitalize that.) at the church my wife and I were married at. It isn't anything super critical. I write up letters and prepare bulletins, that sort of thing. All the same, I learn a little bit about the life of a minister each time.
This week's lesson was one of the harder ones, while it should naturally be obvious. There was a death in the parish the other day. What this means is that everything else that has been planned gets set on a back burner. I wasn't particularly able to help with anything to do with the funeral. I just had to keep on with the work at hand, and let the Pastor deal with it.
This, I think will be the true test of my worth as her assistant. Can I do the job without her being able to constantly review my work? Especially as regards the writing of correspondence in her name, when she has no time to really look at it. There is much I can't do without her input. As a volunteer, that isn't my real problem. My job is to do what I am able to pick up the things that I can and will let her get past this weekend.
I don't think too many of us realize just how much is involved in being a minister. Lord above knows that I didn't until I started doing some of this work for her. A minister is responsible for the well-being of hundreds of people. It is his or her duty to tend the ill, without showing shock or pity. They assist the poor, without lowering their self esteem. The minister binds a community's ills as best he or she is able, without seeming like a busybody. All of this, plus being a living compass, a guide in living a life benefiting society.
I have to wonder sometimes if that isn't the problem with the Catholic Priesthood. It is a heavy responsibility to have so many souls relying on you. I mean that in a secular fashion, not the religious. Such a large portion of the community looks to the parish priest to lead in all social programs. Priests are asked to live lives apart from their flocks, and yet to set the best possible example. They are asked to join souls in matrimony, and never know that experience for themselves. How are they to counsel a couple having difficulties? How are they to understand the pressures of life on a child a generation removed form their memories?
My grandmother, on my father's side, had high hopes that I would become a priest. She will likely roll over in her grave when I say that I am so glad that I did not. While I will never know the joy of having my own children to raise, I could not imagine my life without my marriage. There are so many things that I cannot agree with the Catholic Church about, I have had a difficult enough time just trying to be a lay catholic.
Religion is a subject that I have to look at from the perspective of psychology. Being an assistant to Pastor is as far as I can go. Life as a minister... No, I don't think so, I couldn't handle that much responsibility.

More on the house of dreams

I think I need to clarify a little what I meant in my last post. Specifically what I meant about the difference between a "dream house" and a "house of dreams". I got to thinking about it, and maybe that wasn't put too well yesterday.
A dream house is very much a thing of reality. A lot of building companies design these things, in the hopes that some of the qualities will catch on and be added to conventional houses. A dream house is all about the amenities. Whirlpool baths, expensive tiles, those are the trappings of a dream house.
The house of dreams is something altogether different. They don't usually exist in reality. There is no address for such a thing, though you can make up fanciful names for them. A house of dreams is all about a sense, a feeling. It is the rooms that you see yourself in when you have your happiest of dreams. In such a house, the rooms don't need to have a sensible layout, never mind all of the up to date appliances.
There is a middle ground of course. I like to draft up floor plans and elevations. To do a proper job of it, you have to take into account the lifestyle of the prospective occupants. That includes the feeling that they want. I like to live with someone in my imagination before I ever put a pencil to paper. (You have to admit, you can't actually live with someone for the length of time it would take to know their dreams.)
A lot of architects these days design around one aspect of peoples' lives. Kitchens seem to be the big thing these days. That and entertainment centres. A couple of decades ago, it was all about the car. Houses were garages with boxes attached to them. None of it had to do with the feeling that people wanted to let their HOME give off. Curb appeal meant nothing. It is no small relief to me to see the revival of the front porch.
Anyway, I hope that clarifies the whole idea of a house of dreams for you.

Homes, not houses

I got to do a little dreaming again before going to sleep last night. Every now and then, I like to take what I've been reading, or talked about during the day, and throw it into a small daydream, and just see where it goes.
Last night, I thought about my "house of dreams", not to be confused with a "dream house". A dream house is one of those places that are massive, with just every little convenience and thing you could want. My house of dreams though, isn't quite the same. A house of dreams is a place that is a home first, and the structure isn't exactly important.
First of all, I cannot have my "house of dreams" without my wife in it. It just wouldn't be my house. She is as much a part of me as my left arm (being a southpaw) and I couldn't imagine it otherwise. That is the first and most vital component.
The next thing about my house of dreams is the feeling. As soon as one crosses the threshold, the outside world should fail to exist for them. Their problems wait outside in the cold and dark, while all of their best dreams and hopes come in to be shared. There is no lock on that door. No one would dream of entering in a spirit of malice. It is home to everyone, even if just for a short time. When you have once come through, you are family.
My parents home was very much like that. We kids could bring just any Johnny or Jane home and they would instantly just be one of the family. My best friend says that he came to visit, and wound up being adopted. We are the black hole of families, once you get inside our sphere, it takes a huge amount of effort to get out.
The only "thing" that I put into my dream house is a comfortable room with a fireplace and shelves of books. There are rocking chairs, an easy chair and a couple of window seats in that room. There are spaces to curl up and read, write and dream. Around that fireplace, intimate secrets can be safely told and funny stories related for the enjoyment of all.
This might strike most of you as incredibly fanciful. It is a great fantasy though, built on the foundation of the feeling that I used to have at my parents' house. It is no longer "mine" of course, but when things are right, that is where our own "house of dreams" usually starts.

Still more on New Year's

I used to think that the new year should start with the spring equinox. After all, that is the time of rebirth, when the days finally start to get longer, and the world gets ready to start new generations of just about everything. With the new grass, all things seem fresh.
The best argument for starting the year just after the winter solstice is a psychological one. For one thing, everyone needs a good reason to get out during the winter. Let's face it, even after all of that Christmas running around, the season isn't complete until you've kissed your sweetheart at midnight.
Another good thing to mention about the timing we have set for the new year is that it brings with it time for expectation and hope. By the time the "natural" new year rolls around, everyone is too busy to think about what they want or need to accomplish in the new year. In days not so long gone by, fields needed to be plowed and sown, calves were being born, and houses cleaned out. Granted that in our information age, these things aren't the distractions to celebrating a trip around our sun that they were, but it is a part of our heritage.
There is an even older psychological reason to put the new year in what we now call January. At the darkest time of the year, ancient peoples had the belief that there was the threat that the sun might never return. When your whole existence depends on the sunny days returning, you definitely want a time to pray to whatever gods you believe in that they will. Some say that's what the big deal was with Stonehenge. It was a place to pray to the gods for the dead and departed, and that meant the sun as well.
Sometimes we have to dig a little deep to understand the way that we do things. If you question things once in a while, instead of just doing the because "that's how it's always been done", sometimes the reasoning will make sense.
Then again, that is just my idea.

Where time goes

People often marvel at how quickly time goes by. We get busy living our lives, and never notice how much time has slipped through our fingers. For example, my mother-in-law was amazed to realize that it is only two more weeks until Christmas. "Where has the time gone?", she asked my wife.
Time, as near as I can figure it, leaves the point in space that we are currently in. Each of us lives in our own little bubble of space-time, as Einstein put it. That's why time can crawl for some of us, and speed by for others. Which is where the whole theory of relativity comes in.
Now, I won't get too technical here, but my theory is that time leaves our individual bubbles of reality and radiates out from them like the rays from the sun. How quickly the time goes depends on how fast we are moving within our bubbles, and whether or not we are really paying attention.
That is correct, ladies and gentlemen, I have just confirmed that a watched pot never boils, and that time is subjective. Remember that guys, from inside their bubbles, women are not spending any more time in the bathroom than we are. We just can't tell from our side.
At about this point, you are shaking your heads and thinking, "Where does he come up with this stuff?" As I've said, I tend to remember most of what I see and hear. It all goes in, gets mixed up a little bit, and comes back out as my various theories. What you just gotten was a little bit of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Star Trek. (As written by author Diane Duane. I refer you to the book "Wounded Sky", and the theories in it.)
For my niece, who loves my ability to take lines from movies and television and use them to make a point, I will finish with a quote from Babylon Five, in which President John Sheridan tells the station Captain where time goes. "Out there," he says, "beyond the rim." He was referring to the rim of the galaxy, where all of the "first ones" had gone.
I think time moves "out there", to the very edge of the universe. If you feel it is going too fast, just slow down for a little while inside your own bubble of the Universe. The Zen Buddhist monks were on to something when they created the gardens for meditation. If you slow down enough, time... will... eventually... stop.

Be mindful of your environment

In my last post, Joe (a fellow blogger) commented that he tries to always be aware of what is going on around him. One_last_kiss says that people do sometimes get a little self absorbed and don't think to look where they are going. Taffy noted the presence of several disabled persons in the restaurant at the time, as mentioned, and that they seemed to be more aware.
I think all three of them have hit the nail on the head with those comments. It is all about being aware of your surroundings. Sometimes we get a little consumed by our thoughts, and that's when we miss that one critical thing we should have been looking out for, like that deer on the side of the road.
I'm as guilty of this as the next person. Sometimes I get so busy doing something, I'm not always sure just where my cane is pointed as I lean on something. Or I will be working at the computer, and totally forget the coffee I poured myself half an hour ago. Don't even get me started on my ability to ignore reality when there is a book involved!
I'm sure that you have all seen the Star Wars movie, in which Luke goes to train with Yoda, the Jedi master. Do you remember the scene where he is trying to explain how Luke can use the Force to move his ship from the lake? "Feel the Force around you." Sure, that might be fiction, but there is that grain of truth, that we can accomplish more if we pay attention to the world around us.
Every discipline I've ever heard of says that we must always be aware of what is going on about us, because all things are interconnected. Action is followed by reaction, even at the quantum level. (If you want to get all scientific about it.) Buddhists say that all things are connected, and how we treat the world around us is how we will be treated by it. The monks revere life to the extent that they sweep insects from their paths.
We don't all have to go to that extreme. Maybe just turn down the mp3 player a little bit. Maybe take the time to look around at the people going past you once in a while. The best advice of all, don't forget to look a child in the eyes when they speak to you. They are people too, and sometimes we overlook what they have to add.

Dream big?

There's been some times that I wish life could be a little simpler.
I got to thinking about just how much I need, versus my old idea of a dream home. At one point, I got to realizing that if I had the kitchen I once dreamed about, I'd never be able to keep it clean. Cooking for two doesn't require a gourmet workspace. We don't have people over for meals that often, so is a huge dining room such an essential? Heck, we eat in front of the television every night.
People like to dream big. Maybe we should try dreaming sensible.
I think my dream now is just to own a place of our own, something that keeps us warm, has enough space for the things we need and love, and isn't impossible for us to live in.
Let's try saving the big dreams for the things that matter. Peace in the middle east and at home. An end to hunger and child poverty. Curing diseases that take lives far too early. Big dreams are all well and good, but let's have them for the things that really could make a difference and then act on them.
I think what I'm saying here is that sometimes I let things I've seen done go to my head and want to try to do the same. Maybe we haven't evolved that far from monkeys after all.
It's time to come up with goals and dreams that are about what I need to be happy, not what "society" says I should have to be successful. Why should I let someone else tell me what success is anyway?
I used to be quite happy working in a fast food kitchen. Maybe if I had stuck with it, I'd have realized the full extent of how happy that job could have made me. It may have been lowly on the social pecking order, but it was meaningful from where I sat.

Intelligent Design?

I watched a television show about the debate over what has been dubbed "intelligent design". Many people are lumping it all into the war between creationism and Darwinian theory. Religion versus science is a never ending struggle. From the days of Copernicus and Galileo, the church has done it's best to keep the strict adherence to the Bible as the basis of our society.
One person on the documentary said that the ultimate goal was to balance science and faith. I have to agree with that .
The goal of Intelligent Design is to get the religious right back into the rule of nations. In a few cases, it appears that they have made the mistake of actually putting that into writing.
The problem is, I like intelligent design as a concept. It just doesn't explain itself the right way.
You see, according to the creationists, the universe was created fully formed, as we know it. Everything is all the plan of God. It just doesn't state where the plan began, who God is and more importantly, how the plan was supposed to work.
I offer this compromise to the empirical scientists and the religious right. The Universe itself is God. It was created in one instant, postulated by science as the big bang, and in the Bible as the void of the beginning. From that point on, the Universe has been evolving, as Darwin hypothesised, following a plan that is the product of the the massed intelligence of the Universe itself. Evolution is the tool of the Universe towards fulfilling the ultimate plan.
This compromise has the effect of putting science into the realm of faith, the faith that there is a plan, and all we have to do is figure out what it is. Religion becomes an integral part of science, a starting point toward understanding the Universe, and a forum for stating theories and letting hard science take over.
I think that, in a way, the teaching of the various faiths has been science disguised as story telling. The Bible tries to explain the way the Universe works. Unfortunately, it is written for a people of a time when there was limited understanding. Taken in context, the scriptures are still valid advice and guidelines for living life. Think of them as the precursor to scientific method.
As the Universe allows us to evolve, we will be permitted to see more and more of the plan. I think that might be the ultimate goal of the design, to get at least one species to the point of knowing the whole, and maybe starting the process all over again.
Unfortunately, we haven't evolved to the point where enough of us can see the plan. We will argue about it for the next hundred years or so. I can only pray that we don't argue ourselves to another dark age. It's taken us over 600 years to get out of the last one.

Monuments and memorials

My wife and I went out to the cemetery to take the flowers from her father's grave. When we did, we noticed a new monument. It was extremely tall, and had the family tree engraved on the one side, with a brief history of the family on the other. It was amazing. The stone was a beautiful shiny black granite, with pictures etched and then sealed on the one side.
This left me to thinking about monuments that we leave behind, and the way that we want to be remembered.
Granted, my final arrangements have been made, and they do not include a headstone or memorial of any kind.
I think, if I were to leave anything behind in memoriam, it would be something that could be enjoyed by others. I'd like to create a park or green space, with a small plaque bearing just my name and the date that the park was founded. I would not want the park named for me, just knowing that I had left something good for others would make me happy.
There is this tendency in our society to buy our memorials. If you are wealthy enough, you get a building or a bridge named after you. I'm waiting for the day that Conrad Black decides to build his own palace, if he has any money left after his time in prison.
The prime example of all of this self-aggrandizement is Donald Trump. Trump Tower, need I say more?
Naming something for yourself is the height of arrogance, especially if it is something that you and your family will maintain control of for as long as possible. The true memorial is something you give quietly to the community. If you are remembered for it, then you can be said to have been a person of note.
I'd just like to earn enough respect within the community I live in that I will be remembered, even without my name on some fancy bronze plaque.

Where Islam got it right

It isn't really politically correct to discuss religion these days. Still, I think I have to say something about the Muslim Faith, and believe me, it's positive.
In most interpretations of the Qua ran, it is forbidden for those of the Muslim faith to drink alcohol. It is considered a major sin, and a vice that can lead to even greater evil.
Last night, Sandra and I were disturbed by one of the neighbours fighting with another woman. There was an awful lot of shouting and banging. The last time I heard the "F" word shouted that loudly, there was sex involved. At any rate, we had to call the police. They came promptly and hauled one of the women away in cuffs. Unfortunately, we also had to wake the superintendent.
Now, I cannot prove the link, but I did see one of the involved parties come in by taxi with a bottle of booze. That was in the afternoon, so by two-thirty in the morning, there must have been SOME affect.
Now, putting two and two together, we come to the conclusion that, if Muslims are not permitted to drink, these things couldn't happen.
There are other things about the Islamic faith that I cannot get behind so easily. The idea that women are somehow inferior and the property of their family is just dumb to me for instance. At one time, it may have had social relevance, but in a modern age?
Before I become labeled a conservative Arab hater, I should point out here that the same sort of thing can be said for most every major religion. Every faith managed to get a little something right though.