Thoughts

Like the rest of nature, we tend not to act of our own accord without some force compelling us. That force can have its source outside of us, as when we move out of the path of an oncoming vehicle; or it can have its source inside of us, as when we respond with tears to some unresolved pain. Especially with regard to this latter force, it is sometimes difficult to tell which factor-- or combination of factors-- leads us to do this or that. Other times, however, that force pulls at us with such power that we are aware of nothing else. This could be the death of a loved one, or the beginning of a relationship. It is with these major forces, these moons that pull upon the oceans of our hearts, that I am concerned; because it is most often these forces that tear us from our places of comfort, that challenge our most deep-seated beliefs, and that rarely leave us the same. In fact, our views of others, our world, and of ourselves can shift drastically, for better or-- if we let it happen-- f...

Our country has a rich history of sometimes creative punishments for different crimes. Some of these were meant to humiliate the offenders more than hurt them (though they definitely had punishments that inflict severe pain). Among the humiliating punishments in colonial North America was a tool called the “ducking stool.” This punishment was reserved as humiliation for slanderers, brawlers, quarrelsome married couples, and even "brewers of bad beer or bakers of bad bread." The offender would be strapped to a chair tied to two twelve- to fifteen-foot beams that could swing out from the shore of a river or pond. Being placed in this chair, he would be swiveled out from the shore and then dunked into the water. Other punishments were more severe. Branding was used to punish with both pain and humiliation. If you were caught stealing, for example, the letter B would be branded on your right hand for the first offense; and on the left hand for the second offense (if someone comm...

This is the letter I'm sending out to ask for spiritual and financial help for our trip to Haiti. Maybe you, too, could help. :-) February 18th, 2011 Dear Friends and Family: It has been over one year since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and its surrounding areas on January 12th, 2010. Since that time, the international community has contributed an estimated $1.4 billion toward relief efforts in the country. While some of this aid has been sent specifically to provide for the 1.3 million displaced in the country, a continuing need is stable, permanent housing. This is no less true for the children of Haiti, an unknown number of whom have been orphaned or abandoned because of the earthquake. This is where you and I come in. I am joining a team of young people from three different churches in Stockton, California, to travel to Jacmel, Haiti, where we will help rebuild an orphanage destroyed in the earthquake. Jacmel sits on the southern coast of Ha...

I was walking through the "fragrance" department in Dillard's today to pick up a donation for the Haiti trip I'm going on in June. A service clerk stopped me and asked me to smell the new Jessica Simpson perfume. I smelled it, and then thought about why she might be letting me smell a perfume instead of a cologne. Quickly, I said, "Oh, I don't have anyone to buy this for." She responded, "Oh, you don't have anyone?" I said, "No," but told her I did like the fragrance. I don't mind very much that I'm not with anyone. In fact, it's been nice to be able to focus on some of the more important things in life. I just hope I can keep that perspective, because I know that is a prerequisite for having healthy relationships. That is, a relationship cannot be the one thing to which you turn to make you happy. It is more important to live a life of purpose, guided by a loving God. A life genuinely lived by this purpose will become...

I went swing dancing last Friday with a few acquaintances. On the way home, the question came up about what our greatest fears were. After one of the girls mentioned hers, she asked what mine was. Immediately, I said it was the fear of rejection, "hands down." Later, though, I realized that was wrong, that my fear of rejection was really a fear of something more specific, something which I understand a lot of men face. That is, I'm afraid of inadequacy. To be sure, this is but an extension of the fear of rejection. If a man hasn't met the standard by which he measures himself, he may feel isolated from his peers, his God, and even himself. Still, there's a special niche of the heart-- a rather deep one, in fact-- into which the fear of inadequacy fits that both distinguishes it from the fear of rejection and that makes it particularly cutting to a male. When much of his identity rests upon the false foundation of his performance in this or that task, as I beli...

It feels like the events intended to help support the Haiti team are coming more frequently now. Support letters have been written and delivered, meetings and social events have been held, deadlines have come and gone; but there's much more to come. We have several meetings in the next few weeks, and we're speaking at a large church here in Stockton on February 27th, telling the congregation what we'll be doing in Haiti. In the meantime, this article (or something close to it) will be published in the Stockton Record to promote our fundraiser in April. "Fundraiser for Haiti Quail Lakes Baptist Church will be hosting a “Walk-a-Thon” and silent auction on Saturday, April 2nd, from 10 A.M. to 12 P.M. Proceeds from the event will be used to send a group of ten young adults to Jacmel, Haiti, where they will help rebuild an orphanage damaged in the January 2010 earthquake. Highlights will include food, live music, and childcare. Known as the Hands and Feet Project, the orpha...

Look at a quote by John Stuart Mill: "Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness[....] Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way[....] Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so." Mill believed in what is today called the "paradox of hedonism." This is the idea that pursuing something for the sake of happiness will never lead to happiness, while pursuing something for its own sake (or for some other end) can. Now, we can forgive Mill for having no knowledge of our biology's influence on happiness (that exercise produces endorphins, for example). Nonetheless, his and others' ideas about this paradox are interesting for two reasons: First, I've seen this time and again in my own life. I cannot count the number of times I've pursued something for the purpose of making me happy, and have instead found myself disappointed. On the other hand, there...

Tonight, my colleagues and I gave presentations about what our seventh-grade program looks like. I know this may seem odd, since we're teachers, but a few of us were nervous to speak in front of a crowd. Although it started rocky, it turned out pretty well. Parents had good questions, and genuinely seemed interested in our school. We felt good about it.

The next time you feel like "someone else will do it," consider the following. There is a phenomenon in psychology called “diffusion of responsibility,” also called the “bystander effect.” When there are a certain number of people around when a problem arises, everyone who is watching will ignore the problem because all of them think that someone else will take care of it. There is a sense of confusion as to who is responsible for helping. A study conducted in 1968 demonstrates this. Two researchers asked college students to talk about problems that college students face, except that the conversation was held over an intercom “to avoid embarrassment” (no one could see the person talking). During the first round, a student mentioned that he had seizures. When it came to his turn to speak again, he made sounds that made it seem he was having a seizure. The researchers found that the larger the group of people, the less likely people were to help. Eighty-five percent of people w...

Some memory loss is natural, because our brain will “sort out” memories based on how important we think they are. This means that if we don’t feel something is very important, we’ll easily forget it. There is a specific area of the brain that we use when we do store new memories, however, called the hippocampus. Situated toward the middle of our brains are two small raindrop-shaped components that are responsible for storing new memories. In fact, if we were missing this part of our brain, we wouldn’t be able to create new memories, and we’d be constantly living in the present (no awareness of the immediate past). This is what happens to some people who develop amnesia. One type is called anterograde amnesia, where a person is unable to remember things that just occurred. A man in a hospital, for example, may greet his doctor as a stranger every time the doctor enters the room. One man in England who has this type of amnesia was tested and found to have a memory that lasts only seven s...

Knowing something is wrong when you have no obvious proof is called intuition (understanding something without being aware of why it’s true). Many people have been fascinated by those who have been supposedly able to predict the future without any obvious proof). The most famous of those who have supposedly been able to predict the future is Nostradamus. This man was a French apothecary (pharmacist) who published several predictions within his lifetime (1506-1566). His popularity is evident in that he is one of only a few authors whose work has rarely been out of print for over four-hundred years. These are because many people believe that his predictions have come true. They interpret his predictions in terms of what has happened recently in our history. For example, they say one of his predictions foretold the Challenger disaster in 1986 (mentions nine people, when seven were in the shuttle). Another, they say, foresaw the rise of Adolph Hitler when it mentions “Hister” (really a loc...

The following is the story of a few people who took a group of strangers and led them into friendly interaction, through humor. The subway system in New York City is likely the busiest in the world; and yet, despite the variety and amount of people that get on and off the train every day, many people avoid making contact with one another. They simply want to ride to and from where they’re going, and be done with it. On February 2nd, 2002, a group of people decided they were going to break this routine by staging two surprise birthday parties on one of the trains (the number six train). Entering the train at Brooklyn Bridge, they came with two long Happy Birthday signs, twenty birthday balloons, twenty-four party hats, thirty-five cupcakes, and sixteen noisemakers, along with a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game. Three of the friends were in charge of setting up the party, while seven others were supposed to act like strangers who didn’t know anyone else on the train (entering the train at...

One man who lived in Russia in the early 1900s demonstrated the power of influence or persuasion. This man, named Grigori, had a poor enough reputation that he was given a nickname that means “denegrate” (Rasputin, someone of low status). His influence over the Russian princess was a result of “mysterious healing powers.” The son of the princess, named Alexei, had a disease called hemophilia, which causes its sufferer to bleed continuously even from the smallest cut. While doctors could not heal this boy, Rasputin was able to help, possibly through hypnosis (or encouraging his mother to let him rest). Because he helped their son, the prince and princess believed he was a holy man, a friend, prophet, and man of God. Rasputin’s influence over the princess as a result of his “healing powers” was strong enough that he was able to say who should and shouldn’t be in power. Three Russian aristocrats believed he was damaging the entire country and believed he needed to die. On a cold night in ...

Our history is full of examples of those who refused to accept change (often because it challenged ideas that were very important to them). You may already have studied one of the more famous examples of stubbornness. Early in the 1500's, many Europeans believed that the earth was the center of the universe. Around this earth, they said, moved ten “transparent crystal spheres.” The closest sphere was the moon, the next closest was the sun. The next five spheres held the “five known planets,” while the eighth sphere had the “fixed stars” (the last two spheres were created to accommodate small changes in the locations of stars). After the tenth sphere was heaven, with God and the “souls of the saved,” while the angels made sure the ten spheres moved “in perfect circles.” This idea gave some Christians a place for God, and it put humans at an important central place in the universe. Starting in 1506, however, Nicolas Copernicus challenged these ideas. For twenty-six years, he develope...

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to ...

Ivan the Terrible is known as one of the cruelest monarchs in all of history. As a young man, he was a relatively stable ruler, improving and reforming what is today Russia. Then, something terrible happened. Ivan’s beloved wife, Anastasia, died at age 25 or 26. He strongly believed she was poisoned (as he believed his mother was poisoned), and from that point seemed to become increasingly cruel and unstable. When he found someone guilty of a crime, for example, he would at times not only kill the man himself, but also the man’s family and his servants. He would schedule torture sessions while he attended mass, and would have people boiled in oil (others would have their tongues cut out, or would be impaled or sent into exile, and it’s said he would toss live animals and people from his tower). Possibly the worst of his acts, however, came when he inadvertently killed his own son by striking him with his staff on the head. Ivan had been displeased with his daughter-in-law’s choice of c...

There's a passage in George Orwell's 1984 where the main character is forced to work ninety hours in one week. Beds are brought to workstations, food is delivered desk-side, glasses become fogged every few minutes, and the main character is too tired to care much about his life. Not many of us, I hope, are forced to work to that extent, but working too much has a definite effect on a person's psychological well-being. Just as a person's non-essential body functions shut down when in an emergency, so all "non-essential" areas of life diminish when overcome with work. By "non-essential," I specifically mean that relationships lose their value. Even if we may not intend for it to become so, in fact, work can become in us a drug, our single source of purpose, the one unfailing thing to which we can turn where all else-- in our eyes-- fails. Why should this be surprising? Why should it be surprising that testing and retesting our abilities in work-- ...