I have a penchant for romantic song lyrics (not the rock music variety), the 20th and so-far 21st Century replacement for poetry, and a favorite poet-song-writer of mine was John Denver (1943-1997). Not that John Denver was an expert on love, but rather he had a poet’s sensitivity to put into lyric verse some of the observations and questions and feelings that anyone has who does not take this quintessential human need for granted—or for simply a whimsical notion. Just as his song, ‘Wild Montana Skies’ has the lyric, “[I]…give voice to the forest, give voice to the dawn, give voice to the wilderness and the land that he lived on,” so too does his corpus of lyrics, as do others,’ give voice to the thoughts, feelings, and hopes of one who loves, has loved, or desires love. His song, ‘Some Say Love’ is representative of just such a poetic inquiry.
A deeper, and much more insightful, treatment of the nature, risks and rewards of love in its several forms—beyond the typical two-three minute popular love song—is explored, in C.S. Lewis’s “The Four Loves.” His “Surprised by Joy,” is a further treatment as he experienced love firsthand. I highly recommend these books. I have also gained from a Lewis-inspired book, A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken.
Eric Fromm’s “The Art of Loving” provides a framework for thoughtful analysis although I reject most of his conclusions stemming from his flawed psychoanalytic premises. One good line of his, however, is this: “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.” (p. 56)
Leo Buscaglia does a good job of tackling this most human of emotions in several of his books.
Foundational, though, to any serious inquiry of what love is, and its proper expression, for Christian or non-Christian, is found in the New Testament of the Bible. The words of Jesus, and apostles John and Paul are invaluable.
And William Shakespeare had it right with his Sonnet 116. Find it and read it.
My understanding of love, though helped by the writing of others, has come about by what I have experienced from my relationship with God and with my own loved ones. Here, in a nutshell, is what I believe: love is an attitude, an orientation of character that has as its focus the pleasing and well-being of another. It is a giving for another, a giving of yourself, not a ‘trying to get’ from another, but in the living process one does, in fact, get as well. It is achieving a ‘oneness’ with another person and a losing of the separateness of and focus on yourself. It is a ‘standing for’ someone, not a ‘falling for’ them; you stand in love, you don’t fall in love. Love is a synergy. It involves care, responsibility and commitment, respect and appreciation. Lovers are “each in love with the other for the sake of perfecting their mutual work.” (Rumi)
I end with an expression of the attitude of love I was fortunate to learn as a young man as I became acquainted, in an English class, with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s wonderful poem, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall love thee better after death.
Fact for musing: In her life a green turtle lays an average of 1800 eggs. Of these, some 1395 don't hatch, 374 hatchlings quickly die, and only 3 live long enough to breed. The highest reported number of children born to one mother is 69, to a Russian peasant woman in the 18th century. They comprised four sets of quadruplets, seven sets of triplets, and 16 pairs of twins. Pretty hard to believe.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Live With It
Sometimes we say things without giving them much thought. I remember doing that a few years ago while my wife and I were on our mission to Samoa when I wrote a note to my family saying that Cheryl and I were fine after our cyclone experience and then I ended it with “Life is good.” As soon as I hit the “send” button I immediately but temporarily regretted saying that because for many, and for all of us at one time or another, life seems anything but “good.” It seems to be hard, frustrating, painful, hopeless, unfair, stacked against us, uncertain, unjust, bleak, boring, tedious, frightening, certainly challenging.
But it has a purpose. In a flash of insight I once heard a wise woman say, “Life is not a playground; it is a laboratory and a workshop.” She was right. In a laboratory we learn something, and in a workshop we produce something.
Life is also a test track, a proving ground, perhaps even a crucible. But I say, live with it and be glad for it. If we do it right, we can come out a winner, justified, and refined—and as happy as if it were a playground. The time will come when each of us will say, “I can see clearly now—the rain is gone….”
Yes, life is good.
Trivia to ponder: At a steady jogger’s pace of 6 mph it would take 173 days to go around the equatorial circumference of the earth, and more than 5 years to go around the circumference of the largest planet, Jupiter. And after all that, we only arrive at where we started. But I'm sure we would be changed.
But it has a purpose. In a flash of insight I once heard a wise woman say, “Life is not a playground; it is a laboratory and a workshop.” She was right. In a laboratory we learn something, and in a workshop we produce something.
Life is also a test track, a proving ground, perhaps even a crucible. But I say, live with it and be glad for it. If we do it right, we can come out a winner, justified, and refined—and as happy as if it were a playground. The time will come when each of us will say, “I can see clearly now—the rain is gone….”
Yes, life is good.
Trivia to ponder: At a steady jogger’s pace of 6 mph it would take 173 days to go around the equatorial circumference of the earth, and more than 5 years to go around the circumference of the largest planet, Jupiter. And after all that, we only arrive at where we started. But I'm sure we would be changed.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
One's Best Intentions
Well, I already did it. Twice. I had intended to do a posting twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I still intend to do it, but I didn’t do it last Friday. Neither did I put in the abstruse ‘fact for musing’ last Monday.
Somebody apparently said, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ I don’t know that I’d go that far (either to say that or to travel that road to its destination), but I do know that many people get into their biggest trouble by breaking commitments or promises they made and that others’ counted on—in marriage, diet, financial obligations, work commitments, etc. I doubt if anybody lost any sleep by finding they could not read a new posting from me last Friday, but I do know that my credibility took a hit—if not from a reader, at least from me, the non-poster. So what does one do? He tries again.
Here is my combined last-Friday and today, Monday posting: It is taken from some provocative thoughts by Robert Fulghum,. All I Really Need to Know I learned In Kindergarten. Ivy Books, New York, 1988.
-"Place your bet somewhere between haste-makes-waste and he-who-hesitates-is-lost." (75)
-[re. liberated women or people] "Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of." (104)
-[His cure for depression: put on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.] "The music comes on like the first day of Creation." "I find an irresistible affirmation. In deep spiritual winter, I find inside myself the sun of summer. . . " (110)
-Fulghum's Exchange Principle: "Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away." (117)
-"Imagination is more important than information." (Einstein)
-"All things live only if something else is cleared out of the path to make way. No death; no life. No exceptions. Things must come and go. People. Years. Ideas. Everything. The wheel turns, and the old is cleared away as fodder for the new." (146)
-"In a sense we make up all our relatives. . . fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and the rest. Especially if they are dead or distant. We take what we know, which isn't ever the whole story, and we add it to what we wish and need, and stitch it together into some kind of family quilt to wrap up in on our mental couch. We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. Thinking about the grandfather I wish I had prepares me for the grandfather I wish to be, a way of using what I am to shape the best that is to come. It is a preparation."
Fact for musing: In 1903, Flyer 1, the Wright brothers’ biplane, traveled for 120’ through the air. If it had taken off inside a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet at the tail end, it would have touched down 111 feet from the nose—still inside the plane.
Somebody apparently said, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ I don’t know that I’d go that far (either to say that or to travel that road to its destination), but I do know that many people get into their biggest trouble by breaking commitments or promises they made and that others’ counted on—in marriage, diet, financial obligations, work commitments, etc. I doubt if anybody lost any sleep by finding they could not read a new posting from me last Friday, but I do know that my credibility took a hit—if not from a reader, at least from me, the non-poster. So what does one do? He tries again.
Here is my combined last-Friday and today, Monday posting: It is taken from some provocative thoughts by Robert Fulghum,. All I Really Need to Know I learned In Kindergarten. Ivy Books, New York, 1988.
-"Place your bet somewhere between haste-makes-waste and he-who-hesitates-is-lost." (75)
-[re. liberated women or people] "Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of." (104)
-[His cure for depression: put on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.] "The music comes on like the first day of Creation." "I find an irresistible affirmation. In deep spiritual winter, I find inside myself the sun of summer. . . " (110)
-Fulghum's Exchange Principle: "Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away." (117)
-"Imagination is more important than information." (Einstein)
-"All things live only if something else is cleared out of the path to make way. No death; no life. No exceptions. Things must come and go. People. Years. Ideas. Everything. The wheel turns, and the old is cleared away as fodder for the new." (146)
-"In a sense we make up all our relatives. . . fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and the rest. Especially if they are dead or distant. We take what we know, which isn't ever the whole story, and we add it to what we wish and need, and stitch it together into some kind of family quilt to wrap up in on our mental couch. We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. Thinking about the grandfather I wish I had prepares me for the grandfather I wish to be, a way of using what I am to shape the best that is to come. It is a preparation."
Fact for musing: In 1903, Flyer 1, the Wright brothers’ biplane, traveled for 120’ through the air. If it had taken off inside a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet at the tail end, it would have touched down 111 feet from the nose—still inside the plane.
Friday, August 13, 2010
A Tribute To Those Who Are Ill
I have been sick for the past week. I will one day acknowledge—I won’t yet—that I have become old. When one is sick or old it goes without saying that one cannot do many things that at an earlier age came so easily. But, in one of life’s ironies, the ill or the aged can do some things better and see things more clearly than they could previously. Every time I get sick I think I see more clearly. I will cite two better examples of this of dear people who mean much to me.
The first is my late wife Merrilee Kim (Hafen) Miller (1958-1995). Everything of that which I note about Kim could also be said of my late wife Karen Lynn (Underwood) Miller (1944-1992), the wife of my youth. They were cut out of the same cloth.
Surely Kim was an intelligent and lively and cheerful and kind and faithful girl and woman before I met her. I have read the journals she faithfully kept and the comments in her high school and college yearbooks and I have listened carefully to people who knew her and members of her family who spoke of their sister and daughter and neice and friend. Yet during the short time of our courtship and marriage I saw those wonderful qualities amplified and even intensified as her candle burned down. Toward the end the veil between this life and the next became very thin indeed. She came to see and know things that she could not have seen and known had her physical health been better. I was supremely blessed by her communicating many of these things to me. The irony was that, as fine as it was in her wellness, her spiritual health intensified and it brought her greater joy. For some it would bring despair, but not for her, for she was grounded, as the apostle Paul said, “according to the riches of [God’s] glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man…that [she]…being rooted and grounded in love [was] able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge….” (Ephesians 3:16-19)
The second example is my friend Harold Bartlett. Bud, as he is known by his friends, is the most stalwart man I have ever known. He is an inspiration, since his illness, to every person who has ever had the privilege of meeting and being with him. Bud was brought down in the prime of his physical manhood by a neurological disease that has robbed him his mobility and coordination. He has been in this condition for over 20 years. Though he continues to physically deteriorate, his spiritual aura increasingly illuminates as he does what he can with his diminishing resources. I don’t know that I have ever seen a more joyful Christian. He knows—as cited by inspiration given to Benjamin Franklin, given in an earlier posting on this weblog—that his body ‘will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the author.’ His spirit is already in that ‘more elegant and revised edition…corrected by the author.’ What a man!
The first is my late wife Merrilee Kim (Hafen) Miller (1958-1995). Everything of that which I note about Kim could also be said of my late wife Karen Lynn (Underwood) Miller (1944-1992), the wife of my youth. They were cut out of the same cloth.
Surely Kim was an intelligent and lively and cheerful and kind and faithful girl and woman before I met her. I have read the journals she faithfully kept and the comments in her high school and college yearbooks and I have listened carefully to people who knew her and members of her family who spoke of their sister and daughter and neice and friend. Yet during the short time of our courtship and marriage I saw those wonderful qualities amplified and even intensified as her candle burned down. Toward the end the veil between this life and the next became very thin indeed. She came to see and know things that she could not have seen and known had her physical health been better. I was supremely blessed by her communicating many of these things to me. The irony was that, as fine as it was in her wellness, her spiritual health intensified and it brought her greater joy. For some it would bring despair, but not for her, for she was grounded, as the apostle Paul said, “according to the riches of [God’s] glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man…that [she]…being rooted and grounded in love [was] able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge….” (Ephesians 3:16-19)
The second example is my friend Harold Bartlett. Bud, as he is known by his friends, is the most stalwart man I have ever known. He is an inspiration, since his illness, to every person who has ever had the privilege of meeting and being with him. Bud was brought down in the prime of his physical manhood by a neurological disease that has robbed him his mobility and coordination. He has been in this condition for over 20 years. Though he continues to physically deteriorate, his spiritual aura increasingly illuminates as he does what he can with his diminishing resources. I don’t know that I have ever seen a more joyful Christian. He knows—as cited by inspiration given to Benjamin Franklin, given in an earlier posting on this weblog—that his body ‘will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the author.’ His spirit is already in that ‘more elegant and revised edition…corrected by the author.’ What a man!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Facts, Frameworks, and World Views
Since Omnium-Gatherum is, by definition, a miscellaneous gathering, I have decided to add to each posting—at least for a while--some interesting (to me) fact that you, too, might enjoy pondering. By itself the fact might be just trivia; you could get these kinds of things by consulting the Guinness Book of Records. But you probably wouldn’t get the comparisons that I will try to include to help with a point of reference for the fact.
Although I will not generally comment on the ‘fact of the day,’ I hope it may fascinate and inform you and stimulate you to make further comparisons of your own.
Now that brings me to the more important point of this posting. Having a point of reference, based on facts or their equivalent, placing your point of reference in a context, and then using it in a frame of reference in your development of a consistent and accurate world view are parts of what it means to be an educated person. An accurate world view helps you to make sense of the world and keeps you focused on what really matters. It helps you develop your values consistent with the virtues you have identified as themselves being consistent with life’s governing principles. Having this developed view means the difference between the unfocused life and one that has purpose and a plan for getting where you want to go.
We all must make constant evaluations and judgments based on inferences, deductions, facts, probabilities, and possibilities in nearly everything we do. If we don’t, and we just go with the flow, we might well end up in some destination or with something we really don’t want. If we don’t know where we are going, we will surely get there.
Fact: Anciently, the linear measurement ‘foot’ came from the measurement of that of an adult male. However to establish greater accuracy, it was reported that in 1598 the average ‘foot’ measurement of the first sixteen men who came out of some church, I think in Germany, became the standard. (According to Jacob Kobel, Geometrey von kunstlichen Feldtmessen, the Science Museum of London.)
Examples: A bowling lane is 60’ long, whereas the distance from the pitcher’s mound rubber is 60’6” to the home plate; the Acapulco, Mexico divers dive from 118' (as high as an 11 story building); Mt. Everest is 29,002’; and a mile is made up of 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards or 1.609 kilometers.
Although I will not generally comment on the ‘fact of the day,’ I hope it may fascinate and inform you and stimulate you to make further comparisons of your own.
Now that brings me to the more important point of this posting. Having a point of reference, based on facts or their equivalent, placing your point of reference in a context, and then using it in a frame of reference in your development of a consistent and accurate world view are parts of what it means to be an educated person. An accurate world view helps you to make sense of the world and keeps you focused on what really matters. It helps you develop your values consistent with the virtues you have identified as themselves being consistent with life’s governing principles. Having this developed view means the difference between the unfocused life and one that has purpose and a plan for getting where you want to go.
We all must make constant evaluations and judgments based on inferences, deductions, facts, probabilities, and possibilities in nearly everything we do. If we don’t, and we just go with the flow, we might well end up in some destination or with something we really don’t want. If we don’t know where we are going, we will surely get there.
Fact: Anciently, the linear measurement ‘foot’ came from the measurement of that of an adult male. However to establish greater accuracy, it was reported that in 1598 the average ‘foot’ measurement of the first sixteen men who came out of some church, I think in Germany, became the standard. (According to Jacob Kobel, Geometrey von kunstlichen Feldtmessen, the Science Museum of London.)
Examples: A bowling lane is 60’ long, whereas the distance from the pitcher’s mound rubber is 60’6” to the home plate; the Acapulco, Mexico divers dive from 118' (as high as an 11 story building); Mt. Everest is 29,002’; and a mile is made up of 5,280 feet, 1,760 yards or 1.609 kilometers.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Pascal's Wager
Another of my 'giants' is Blase Pascal.
Alan Bloom in "The Closing of the American Mind" said: 'Every Frenchman is born, or at least early on becomes, Cartesian or Pascalian. Descartes and Pascal are national authors, and they tell the French people what their alternatives are, and afford a peculiar and powerful perspective on life's perennial problems. They weave the fabric of souls.[They] represent a choice between reason and revelation, science and piety, the choice from which everything else follows.' (p.52) It is not that I take my marching orders from Pascal, but he does present life's alternatives in their black and white forms, from which we can start to develop or identify our own world view or frame of reference.
Blasé Pascal (1623-1662), a French philosopher and mathematician posed an argument for believing in God – as opposed to disbelief. It is summarized as follows (from his Pensees):
“You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed….”
The argument: Either there is a God or there is not.
1.If there is not a God but you choose to believe there is a God, you have lost very little, if anything, because your belief will motivate you to act according to what you think God has prescribed. This will give you a moral framework for ordering your life and your life will have focus and society will be benefited by your right (unharmful) actions.
2.If there is not a God and you believe there is not a God your life may or may not be focused but those who ignore the promptings of their consciences, which initially are undeniable, are likely to act in ways that are harmful to themselves and to society.
3.If there is a God and you believe there is a God you will act on your belief consistent with what God has revealed as to the proper way of living. The consequences of your belief/actions will benefit you eternally (for He has said so) and will benefit mankind because your actions will be good and just.
4.If there is a God and you choose to not believe and act according to the guidelines God has given, you will sooner or later bring misery and damnation [a stopping of progress] to yourself (for God has so indicated), and perhaps to others, as a consequence of your disbelief.
Pascal’s wager, therefore, is to bet on God. You really can’t lose.
*The caveat, from my strong conviction of course, is to bet on and align yourself with the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent to save us.
Alan Bloom in "The Closing of the American Mind" said: 'Every Frenchman is born, or at least early on becomes, Cartesian or Pascalian. Descartes and Pascal are national authors, and they tell the French people what their alternatives are, and afford a peculiar and powerful perspective on life's perennial problems. They weave the fabric of souls.[They] represent a choice between reason and revelation, science and piety, the choice from which everything else follows.' (p.52) It is not that I take my marching orders from Pascal, but he does present life's alternatives in their black and white forms, from which we can start to develop or identify our own world view or frame of reference.
Blasé Pascal (1623-1662), a French philosopher and mathematician posed an argument for believing in God – as opposed to disbelief. It is summarized as follows (from his Pensees):
“You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed….”
The argument: Either there is a God or there is not.
1.If there is not a God but you choose to believe there is a God, you have lost very little, if anything, because your belief will motivate you to act according to what you think God has prescribed. This will give you a moral framework for ordering your life and your life will have focus and society will be benefited by your right (unharmful) actions.
2.If there is not a God and you believe there is not a God your life may or may not be focused but those who ignore the promptings of their consciences, which initially are undeniable, are likely to act in ways that are harmful to themselves and to society.
3.If there is a God and you believe there is a God you will act on your belief consistent with what God has revealed as to the proper way of living. The consequences of your belief/actions will benefit you eternally (for He has said so) and will benefit mankind because your actions will be good and just.
4.If there is a God and you choose to not believe and act according to the guidelines God has given, you will sooner or later bring misery and damnation [a stopping of progress] to yourself (for God has so indicated), and perhaps to others, as a consequence of your disbelief.
Pascal’s wager, therefore, is to bet on God. You really can’t lose.
*The caveat, from my strong conviction of course, is to bet on and align yourself with the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent to save us.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Things we can learn from our dogs
With the deluge of information that comes into our lives we may have had the tendency to just block it all out at times (I know I have). But I have found that some information is of much more value than others in helping us with our problems or needs. I do not submit for your consideration the suggestions which follow as information of necessarily the highest value, but they did make me smile. There is much good advice here and some of the suggestions may have value which could possibly help you, too!
Things we can learn from our dogs:
1. When family members come home drop what you’re doing and run to greet them.
2. Let others know when they have invaded your territory.
3. Take naps; stretch before rising.
4. Run, romp and play daily.
5. Eat with concentration then clean your plate.
6. Be loyal.
7. Never pretend to be something you’re not.
8. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
9. When someone is having a bad day be silent, sit close, and nuzzle him or her gently.
10. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
11. Better yet, do a thousand wags to every growl.
12. No matter how often you’re scolded, never pout. Run right back and make friends.
13. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.
Have a nice day.
Things we can learn from our dogs:
1. When family members come home drop what you’re doing and run to greet them.
2. Let others know when they have invaded your territory.
3. Take naps; stretch before rising.
4. Run, romp and play daily.
5. Eat with concentration then clean your plate.
6. Be loyal.
7. Never pretend to be something you’re not.
8. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
9. When someone is having a bad day be silent, sit close, and nuzzle him or her gently.
10. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
11. Better yet, do a thousand wags to every growl.
12. No matter how often you’re scolded, never pout. Run right back and make friends.
13. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.
Have a nice day.
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