Thoughts

I got a tattoo over the weekend. Okay, it's only a spray-on tattoo, but it is the visual reminder of my weekend, of a night on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with my leadership students and over 700 other junior high school students. I have received comments, questions, and even a look from a stranger about the tattoo, most of which have required me to explain its origin. This tattoo is a symbol of my past, and these events show me that my decision to get one in the past has affected me in the present. The same is true for all our decisions. The choices we make in the past, whether public or private, influence our present perceptions, behavior, and dispositions. This is true not only for major life decisions-- a career path or spouse, for instance-- but even for the daily habits of thinking in which we actively and passively engage. For the major life choices, a person's choice of career is a more obvious example. In my own life, my decision to teach junior high school studen...

I'm going to Haiti again this year, so I shared this tonight at a benefit concert for our Haiti team. I’ve had the privilege of going to Haiti twice now, and I can say that each trip was very different. On our first trip, I remember thinking that the orphanage was so clean and safe compared to what we had seen in Port-au-Prince; and I left thinking that these children were in such a good place. I came to the second trip with the same understanding, but I left that week with a different mindset. We began to understand from that trip that for all the wonderful things the missionaries had given to these children, they could not always give back to them their parents. These children were still orphans, and for that reason, we saw some of the pain they felt. The directors told us about one boy, in particular, who was very defensive, and learned that his feelings of abandonment came from parents who were still alive and had given him up willingly. I think some of us learned from th...

Sometimes, when we hand out lunches to the homeless on Sundays, an individual will ask for a second lunch, ostensibly because there is a family member somewhere who needs one. We respond by saying that we give lunches only to the people who come to us in line. This prevents individuals from taking two lunches for themselves.* Two Sunday ago, however, we were handing out lunches to more people than we had ever seen before. The pace was quick and it was difficult to keep up. In the midst of this business, a woman asked me if she could receive a second lunch for a man in a wheelchair across the street (he was visible to us), saying that my mother had already given her permission. Too rushed to stop and think, I reluctantly gave the woman the second lunch. I watched, then, as she walked toward the man in the wheelchair, then saw her turn left to sit on a bench with others without having given him the lunch. Although I can't say for certain whether the woman shared the s...

If I could tell my students how to choose a path of employment, I would emphasize that no effective writer, historian, athlete, musician, or scientist became such without dedicating themselves to some goal. For that to have taken place, however, the respective expert must have had a firm idea about why they were doing what they were doing. In other words, they must have had purpose. Karl Marx spent countless hours in English libraries, I would share, to understand the functioning of society in order to improve it; while Isaac Newton often went without food to gain a firmer grasp of the science of motion, and eventually revised that science. They did this because they had a clear purpose, a real reason for doing what they were doing that would affect others around them. I would communicate that whatever passion students tap into, it should be embarked upon with that kind of clear goal in mind. While they may not know which passions they have yet, I would emphasize that school is a time ...

I shrink at the dark of sin inside my heart From which the blood of Jesus sets me free For now this leprous soul is fashioned into art Into a green and efflorescent tree As from this canopy of peace I start To worship the gold Triumvirate Three The dark I find in me can now depart, The shame dispelled which shrouded me. A new-discovered man now set apart Both now and for eternity

It has been argued that the way we act is caused by things outside our control (our upbringing, our culture, or our genes, for example). People with this belief would argue that people behave badly because it is in their genes to behave badly, or because they learned it from their parents growing up; and people behave well because it is in their genes to behave well, or because they learned it from their parents growing up. This is a form of what’s called determinism , or the idea that everything we do is determined by past events and by something called natural law (a law set by nature and that is valid everywhere). Why is this important? Saying that we behave the way we do because of our genetics or the environment means we aren’t really responsible for our bad behavior. If I do something wrong, it isn’t my fault because I didn’t really have a choice anyway. Contrast this with the idea of free will. Those who believe in free will argue that our choices are our own, and that we have...

A little over a year ago, my eighth-grade class was studying character motivation. During the introduction of the idea, I tried to bridge the notion of character motivation to our own motivation. Knowing a person's motivation, I tried to stress, allows you to glean something about that person's character. The example I used was unintentionally self-revealing. What if, I said, a person entered the room pleading that someone outside needed immediate medical attention. One person whose motive was duty might think it morally right to lend assistance, but may have no real concern for the person. The person would go, perhaps begrudgingly, as though it was a necessary act. The victim, to him, is simply a receptacle into into which he pours his skill or aid, a mere opportunity to demonstrate his own value as a human being. His motivation is self-interested. The next person, on the other hand, might genuinely care about a victim's life and so leave in haste out of his ...