In law there are ‘substantive’ as contrasted to ‘procedural’ issues that must be dealt with. If you have read Omnium-Gatherum with any regularity you will have observed that for the past month or so I have been sporadic in my output of essays or commentaries.
Consider this as an explanation of this ‘substantive’ issue: I have read admissions by even seasoned syndicated columnists and writers that events in their personal lives or fatigue or wintry times or something as inexplicable as ‘writer’s block’ temporarily dries-up the wells of creativity or wisdom or opinion and it becomes a chore to produce anything of value. Following the death of my father last month it has become temporarily that way with me. The ‘substantive’ has essentially been on hold while I have sorted out family issues dealing with this major life event as well as experiencing a protracted cold and rainy season, my wife out of town for a couple of weeks, birthdays and births and health issues in the family, a round of golf with 37 putts, and income tax time. Having a world in geophysical as well as political revolution hasn’t helped either.
I think that with Spring about ready to spring I will be over it. I feel it in the air.
So, if you have ever felt that way take it on faith—on my faith if not your own—that the night of darkness never wins out, for the dawn and the Spring is irresistible. It will come. Hope springs eternal.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Violence in 'Entertainment'
I was talking with my brother-in-law the other day about our respective experiences in college physical education class boxing. We both enjoyed it as participants but I, at least, soon began to take no interest in it when in my twenties I watched televised matches and became aware of the reaction of the television crowds. They were thirsting for blood. I also enjoyed closely supervised school-boy wrestling and taught it and coached it for a number of years but when I happened upon the televised spectacle of ‘big time’ or ‘pro’ wrestling I was repulsed ‘big time.’ This was not a sport, such as NCAA college or Olympic Games wrestling, but was staged and glorified mayhem, and again I looked at the crowds who found this staged violence entertaining. Seeing and hearing them I lost all interest in professional mutations of these activities. There are other much more wholesome sports.
At the university I studied educational psychology and took classes in sport psychology and the sociology of sport. I came to learn that the viewing of and glorifying of violence desensitizes people and contributes to violence in their own lives. I found this especially to be true with children and youth who are very impressionable. As a public school teacher I came to learn that a number of my boys were involved in gangs; sadly, a couple of them died in gang-related shootings. One of the gangs, the Nortenos had as a slogan, ‘UNLV’—Us Nortenos Love Violence. I did what I could to counter the developing trend in the lives of the boys I taught.
In recent decades we have witnessed terrible tragedies where deranged youth and young adults have gone on shooting rampages. To a lesser scale this happens weekly in the city in which I taught with drive-by and gang turf battles.
I place much of the blame on the viewing and participation of our young people with television, movie, and video game violence. And, of course, the drug culture is a big contributor.
The cinching argument, for me, came with maturity and internalizing and resonating to a scripture found in the Book of Moses: [In the times of Noah] “the earth was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence…for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence….” (Moses 8:28,30)God had enough and had to clean house.
Man reveals himself through what he entertains himself with. I am pleased to say that violence in any form no longer holds any entertainment value for me and ashamed to say that it once did to a small degree. Repentance is a wonderful thing.
Maybe our culture would be healthier and retain the favor of God that our wisest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, prayed for if it didn’t glorify or capitalize on violence for entertainment value or for an increased slice of our economic gross domestic product. We can become acculturated to the positive as well as the negative.
At the university I studied educational psychology and took classes in sport psychology and the sociology of sport. I came to learn that the viewing of and glorifying of violence desensitizes people and contributes to violence in their own lives. I found this especially to be true with children and youth who are very impressionable. As a public school teacher I came to learn that a number of my boys were involved in gangs; sadly, a couple of them died in gang-related shootings. One of the gangs, the Nortenos had as a slogan, ‘UNLV’—Us Nortenos Love Violence. I did what I could to counter the developing trend in the lives of the boys I taught.
In recent decades we have witnessed terrible tragedies where deranged youth and young adults have gone on shooting rampages. To a lesser scale this happens weekly in the city in which I taught with drive-by and gang turf battles.
I place much of the blame on the viewing and participation of our young people with television, movie, and video game violence. And, of course, the drug culture is a big contributor.
The cinching argument, for me, came with maturity and internalizing and resonating to a scripture found in the Book of Moses: [In the times of Noah] “the earth was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence…for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence….” (Moses 8:28,30)God had enough and had to clean house.
Man reveals himself through what he entertains himself with. I am pleased to say that violence in any form no longer holds any entertainment value for me and ashamed to say that it once did to a small degree. Repentance is a wonderful thing.
Maybe our culture would be healthier and retain the favor of God that our wisest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, prayed for if it didn’t glorify or capitalize on violence for entertainment value or for an increased slice of our economic gross domestic product. We can become acculturated to the positive as well as the negative.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Unmarried Men
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2)
Every Christian young adult man has read or heard that more times than he probably cares to acknowledge. The problem he will one day have to face if he doesn’t resolve the situation is that there will be an accounting; it will be brought to his attention that he has ignored a divine directive, that there were reasons for its issuance, and that there will be serious consequences.
On a sociological level the pre-adulthood phenomenon of delayed marriage represents a momentous demographic event. In a new book published just this month, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, author Kay S. Hymowitz presents a stinging critique of today's ‘pre-adult’ generation of male 20-30 (and beyond) year-olds. She writes: “Today, most men in their 20’s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence…. But it’s time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.” “For these women, one key question won’t go away: Where have the good men gone?” “Single men have never been civilization’s most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with “Star Wars” posters….” “Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does.”
Forced to a feminism response, reminiscent of the ‘70’s, Hymowitz concludes the essence of her argument with: “Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men’s attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do. They might as well just have another beer.”
From my more religious perspective and experience I would have to say that there is more truth to those indictments than we would like to admit. In defense of the young man there are anxieties about education, job, and career and being able to support a wife and family, about being able to purchase a home and even about the prospects of a happy marriage itself, seeing the high incidence of divorce.
But I think too many young men want to get all their ‘ducks in line’ and then find the ‘perfect mate’ before they take the critical steps. Many live in a fantasy world of unrealistically high expectations for women without looking at their own deficiencies. In their own protracted adolescence and timidity and self-centeredness they fail to realize that they, themselves, are not becoming any more attractive to the opposite sex through their age, their critical expectations, their childish lifestyle, their dependence on mom or grandmother, their puerile recreations or their guy roommates. Rather than disqualifying innumerable candidate women because of physical attractiveness or other superficialities (‘She doesn’t fit my needs’) perhaps he needs to take the focus off of himself and start to be what he was put on earth to be: a help meet himself.
Just because young man can’t own a Ferrari doesn’t mean that he should walk or skateboard throughout his life; he could drive a Toyota and be happy. An old short film titled Johnny Lingo drives this point home very well with the metaphor of seeing in a backward girl a ‘five cow wife.’ I used to smile when I heard the 1970’s song by Jimmie Soul: “If you wanna to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife; so for my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.” Maybe she wouldn’t be ‘ugly’ if he brought out the beauty in her. One can aIso be very happy with a pretty woman—I have had three pretty women as wives—so I guess it’s easy for me to make these suggestions.
Maybe happiness comes from what the young man brings to the marriage at least as much as what the woman brings to him. Hmmm….
Every Christian young adult man has read or heard that more times than he probably cares to acknowledge. The problem he will one day have to face if he doesn’t resolve the situation is that there will be an accounting; it will be brought to his attention that he has ignored a divine directive, that there were reasons for its issuance, and that there will be serious consequences.
On a sociological level the pre-adulthood phenomenon of delayed marriage represents a momentous demographic event. In a new book published just this month, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, author Kay S. Hymowitz presents a stinging critique of today's ‘pre-adult’ generation of male 20-30 (and beyond) year-olds. She writes: “Today, most men in their 20’s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence…. But it’s time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.” “For these women, one key question won’t go away: Where have the good men gone?” “Single men have never been civilization’s most responsible actors; they continue to be more troubled and less successful than men who deliberately choose to become husbands and fathers. So we can be disgusted if some of them continue to live in rooms decorated with “Star Wars” posters….” “Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does.”
Forced to a feminism response, reminiscent of the ‘70’s, Hymowitz concludes the essence of her argument with: “Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men’s attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do. They might as well just have another beer.”
From my more religious perspective and experience I would have to say that there is more truth to those indictments than we would like to admit. In defense of the young man there are anxieties about education, job, and career and being able to support a wife and family, about being able to purchase a home and even about the prospects of a happy marriage itself, seeing the high incidence of divorce.
But I think too many young men want to get all their ‘ducks in line’ and then find the ‘perfect mate’ before they take the critical steps. Many live in a fantasy world of unrealistically high expectations for women without looking at their own deficiencies. In their own protracted adolescence and timidity and self-centeredness they fail to realize that they, themselves, are not becoming any more attractive to the opposite sex through their age, their critical expectations, their childish lifestyle, their dependence on mom or grandmother, their puerile recreations or their guy roommates. Rather than disqualifying innumerable candidate women because of physical attractiveness or other superficialities (‘She doesn’t fit my needs’) perhaps he needs to take the focus off of himself and start to be what he was put on earth to be: a help meet himself.
Just because young man can’t own a Ferrari doesn’t mean that he should walk or skateboard throughout his life; he could drive a Toyota and be happy. An old short film titled Johnny Lingo drives this point home very well with the metaphor of seeing in a backward girl a ‘five cow wife.’ I used to smile when I heard the 1970’s song by Jimmie Soul: “If you wanna to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife; so for my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.” Maybe she wouldn’t be ‘ugly’ if he brought out the beauty in her. One can aIso be very happy with a pretty woman—I have had three pretty women as wives—so I guess it’s easy for me to make these suggestions.
Maybe happiness comes from what the young man brings to the marriage at least as much as what the woman brings to him. Hmmm….
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Revolution
What is happening now in the Middle East, with minor shock waves even here in the USA with union protests against state governmental financial reform may be the opening scenes of a cataclysmic turning point in our lifetime. Or, it may be akin to the social revolution of the 1960’s that never quite materialized; if it was the ‘dawning of the Age of Aquarius’ I guess I missed it.
Living on the Big Sur coast, as my wife and I did in 1969-‘72, we saw the hippies walking and hitch-hiking down to this supposed Mecca and then walking and hitch-hiking back to wherever they came from even more dirty disheveled and disillusioned than before. The ideals of the New Left proved to be so vacuous and unsupportive of even life itself that these disenchanted ones came crawling (or hitch-hiking) back to the society that had earlier supported them.
Here, I think, is the difference between today’s incipient revolutions and the moral turbulence, even nihilism, of the ‘60’s. I do not think that the cry for the dismantlement of the tyrannical regimes of the Middle East is related in the least to the ideals of Nietzsche, or Marx, or Herbert Marcuse, but rather to the universal desire to be free: free from bondage, free from political tyranny, free to pursue happiness and economic stability, free to express one’s voice and pursue one’s destiny without undue restraint. In short, free to pursue the values of democracy which seem to resonate with all who have been exposed to them. Modern social media has made that exposure possible. But anarchy is not the solution to freedom, stability, and peace. Social order, quickly put into place is absolutely necessary. And social order is built on a solid foundation.
The true revolutions of the recently concluded millennium that changed the world—the revolution of John Locke and the English or ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688; of Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution of 1776, and of Napoleon and the French Revolution of 1789 (as well as the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century) all had a driving philosophy, a foundational focus ,and each had spokesmen or recognized representatives that people resonated to. And many revolutionaries would sacrifice all they had to achieve their goals: “Give me liberty or give me death!”
My take on the matter before us is this: The greatest revolution was the Christian Revolution of two millennia ago, begun by one man, Jesus Christ, that gave a germinal voice and rise to the very ideals that are being sought by the oppressed of our day—freedom, dignity, opportunity, civil rights, with life as the highest value—indeed, Eternal Life as the quintessence. Though the players are Muslims, they are resonating to the ‘inalienable rights’ so well articulated by the Foundational documents of our own democratic republic—a republic founded on Christian, and I submit universal, ideals: civil and economic rights and responsibility and a respect for the dignity of man and of women.
If we, as a Christian nation without apology, are to continue to be a beacon to the oppressed of this world we must let our light so shine that it does not reveal a dirty mirror. We must clean up our own act, and then we can unhypocritically encourage the new acts that are in the process of birthing and trying to come on to the world stage. Let us pray they do not become aborted or stillborn and that if they are born alive and well that they have dedicated nurturing and a clear vision of what it will take to get them well-established. I support the effort.
‘Let Freedom Ring…!”
Living on the Big Sur coast, as my wife and I did in 1969-‘72, we saw the hippies walking and hitch-hiking down to this supposed Mecca and then walking and hitch-hiking back to wherever they came from even more dirty disheveled and disillusioned than before. The ideals of the New Left proved to be so vacuous and unsupportive of even life itself that these disenchanted ones came crawling (or hitch-hiking) back to the society that had earlier supported them.
Here, I think, is the difference between today’s incipient revolutions and the moral turbulence, even nihilism, of the ‘60’s. I do not think that the cry for the dismantlement of the tyrannical regimes of the Middle East is related in the least to the ideals of Nietzsche, or Marx, or Herbert Marcuse, but rather to the universal desire to be free: free from bondage, free from political tyranny, free to pursue happiness and economic stability, free to express one’s voice and pursue one’s destiny without undue restraint. In short, free to pursue the values of democracy which seem to resonate with all who have been exposed to them. Modern social media has made that exposure possible. But anarchy is not the solution to freedom, stability, and peace. Social order, quickly put into place is absolutely necessary. And social order is built on a solid foundation.
The true revolutions of the recently concluded millennium that changed the world—the revolution of John Locke and the English or ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688; of Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution of 1776, and of Napoleon and the French Revolution of 1789 (as well as the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century) all had a driving philosophy, a foundational focus ,and each had spokesmen or recognized representatives that people resonated to. And many revolutionaries would sacrifice all they had to achieve their goals: “Give me liberty or give me death!”
My take on the matter before us is this: The greatest revolution was the Christian Revolution of two millennia ago, begun by one man, Jesus Christ, that gave a germinal voice and rise to the very ideals that are being sought by the oppressed of our day—freedom, dignity, opportunity, civil rights, with life as the highest value—indeed, Eternal Life as the quintessence. Though the players are Muslims, they are resonating to the ‘inalienable rights’ so well articulated by the Foundational documents of our own democratic republic—a republic founded on Christian, and I submit universal, ideals: civil and economic rights and responsibility and a respect for the dignity of man and of women.
If we, as a Christian nation without apology, are to continue to be a beacon to the oppressed of this world we must let our light so shine that it does not reveal a dirty mirror. We must clean up our own act, and then we can unhypocritically encourage the new acts that are in the process of birthing and trying to come on to the world stage. Let us pray they do not become aborted or stillborn and that if they are born alive and well that they have dedicated nurturing and a clear vision of what it will take to get them well-established. I support the effort.
‘Let Freedom Ring…!”
Friday, March 4, 2011
Final Acts
My father died last Sunday.
It happened, ironically and perhaps significantly, about the time I crafted my last essay on Omnium-Gatherum titled ‘The Winter of our Discontent.’ I got the call about an hour or two after I posted. We knew the winter was coming on for him but it caught us by surprise when it hit. It was obviously the winter of Dad’s discontent because he took his own life that morning.
My brothers and I drove up to his house yesterday to start the process cleaning out and closing down the place he and Mom had lived for the past twenty-five plus years. He had built it, they had furnished it and it was the way he wanted it. I know that because I had asked him about it two weeks ago when my wife and I had last seen him alive. He had arrived at a point where he didn’t want anything changed. At least he believed that nothing could now be changed for things were now beyond his control, so he thought—except for one thing—the final act.
It was not hard for me to start to go through the papers, see the photographs—many faded—taken down from the walls, to clean out from the living quarters of the house the accumulated detritus of a lifetime. Not hard for me until I stepped into his garage. I stood there for a long time. I looked at his tools, the labeled bottles and cans containing nuts and bolts and washers. I looked at his old taped up hammer, his faded and frayed work jacket and boots, the bench grinder remembered from my boyhood fifty years ago, the old truck, the fishing rods, pieces of projects, things that he had worked on and touched with his hands. I remembered his hands.
I went back into the house. I came back in this time to look at things in there that were significant for him like the things in his garage. I now looked at magazines and cards kept, items taped to the refrigerator, the book on cars I once gave him next to the chair he sat upon in the dark corner of his living room. I looked at the ashes in the now cold fireplace. My heart hurt for him.
“Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.” (Doctrine and Covenants, 42:45)
Perhaps I did not love enough for I have not yet wept. Not for him. Not yet.
I have thought much about final acts. I have wept for those whom I have loved—both the dead and the living. I have tried to replay those significant final acts that have occurred in my life where I have had involvement with my people—significant because they were final and because at the time I didn’t know that they would be final. Many times these remembrances have come unbidden. I have tried to identify the tipping points in the lives of those I love, the angle beyond repose where things started to slide, the road taken and the road not taken. I have tried to identify the points where I made a difference in their lives and where I might have made a difference but failed. I think now where I still might make a difference. I hope I can. “Thou shalt live together in love….”
I replay the poet’s words that are indelibly etched in my mind: “God pity them both, and pity us all, who vainly the dreams of youth recall, for of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”
And finally this: “I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost)
So it has.
My benediction for today is that our final acts will not be rued by ourselves or others as the equivalent of the road not taken but which, if it had been, would have made “all the difference.”
Farewell, Dad.
It happened, ironically and perhaps significantly, about the time I crafted my last essay on Omnium-Gatherum titled ‘The Winter of our Discontent.’ I got the call about an hour or two after I posted. We knew the winter was coming on for him but it caught us by surprise when it hit. It was obviously the winter of Dad’s discontent because he took his own life that morning.
My brothers and I drove up to his house yesterday to start the process cleaning out and closing down the place he and Mom had lived for the past twenty-five plus years. He had built it, they had furnished it and it was the way he wanted it. I know that because I had asked him about it two weeks ago when my wife and I had last seen him alive. He had arrived at a point where he didn’t want anything changed. At least he believed that nothing could now be changed for things were now beyond his control, so he thought—except for one thing—the final act.
It was not hard for me to start to go through the papers, see the photographs—many faded—taken down from the walls, to clean out from the living quarters of the house the accumulated detritus of a lifetime. Not hard for me until I stepped into his garage. I stood there for a long time. I looked at his tools, the labeled bottles and cans containing nuts and bolts and washers. I looked at his old taped up hammer, his faded and frayed work jacket and boots, the bench grinder remembered from my boyhood fifty years ago, the old truck, the fishing rods, pieces of projects, things that he had worked on and touched with his hands. I remembered his hands.
I went back into the house. I came back in this time to look at things in there that were significant for him like the things in his garage. I now looked at magazines and cards kept, items taped to the refrigerator, the book on cars I once gave him next to the chair he sat upon in the dark corner of his living room. I looked at the ashes in the now cold fireplace. My heart hurt for him.
“Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.” (Doctrine and Covenants, 42:45)
Perhaps I did not love enough for I have not yet wept. Not for him. Not yet.
I have thought much about final acts. I have wept for those whom I have loved—both the dead and the living. I have tried to replay those significant final acts that have occurred in my life where I have had involvement with my people—significant because they were final and because at the time I didn’t know that they would be final. Many times these remembrances have come unbidden. I have tried to identify the tipping points in the lives of those I love, the angle beyond repose where things started to slide, the road taken and the road not taken. I have tried to identify the points where I made a difference in their lives and where I might have made a difference but failed. I think now where I still might make a difference. I hope I can. “Thou shalt live together in love….”
I replay the poet’s words that are indelibly etched in my mind: “God pity them both, and pity us all, who vainly the dreams of youth recall, for of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”
And finally this: “I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost)
So it has.
My benediction for today is that our final acts will not be rued by ourselves or others as the equivalent of the road not taken but which, if it had been, would have made “all the difference.”
Farewell, Dad.
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