Next week I get to interview a job candidate. I've done this before, but the twist is that this time, the person who fills the position will most likely end up being my boss. So, selfishly, I care less about what this guy brings to the company and more about whether he's gonna balk when I zip out the door at 4 pm because my aging dog can't hold it past 4:30.
Besides asking point blank "Whattya think of an employee who uses an incontinent dog as an excuse to leave at 4 every day?" can anybody think of questions that might reveal someone's character as a supervisor? If you were interviewing people to be your boss, what would you look for?
Remember those Kool-Aid commercials where kids just shouted "Hey, Kool-Aid!", and the pitcher would break though a wall with a tray of drinks?
I have always wanted to be able to do that. Last time I mentioned it, my sister looked at me like I was an idiot and said "If you actually had that ability, wouldn't you say 'Hey, Margarita!' instead?"
Well, personally, I don't like like margaritas, so no. But I get her point. Anyway, this little news item made me think of the image of the big margarita pitcher crashing through the wall with drinks for smiling children:
'Limeade' Packs a Punch: Staff Slip Gives Liquor to Children at Alexandria Private School.
In terms of football reality...if God had intended for people to be watching football at 12:30 am, he wouldn't have allowed for alarm clocks that go off at 5. I did fall into a sort of half-sleep (maybe more of a 75% sleep) Monday night. I had some hazy dream about pass interferences, and in the dream Al Michaels and John Madden were in my basement, I think having swapped places with Victor.
Anyway, while not thrilled with a 1-2 start, I'm still not demoralized. Even with all the mistakes in the two losses, the games have been within reach, not blowouts. There are still many weeks of football, thankfully to take place during my waking hours.
In the next round of fantasy football, Ted's Rockets play Victor's Rats of Chaos. Of course, I am an official Hot Jets cheerleader (Yay Team!), but I do live with Victor, so maybe I'll just lay a little low this week. Although as conflicts of interest go, I have nothing on another Hot Jet, Annika, who actually fields her own Blogger Bowl team.
Speaking of fantasy sports, my "NHL update" e-mail the other day included a link to a SimLeague hockey game. Interestingly, you can use former players. The couple times I played fantasy hockey my downfall was that I packed my team with sentimental favorites who were past their primes. Of course, with the option of using anybody from the history of the NHL, my sentimental self would probablyend up with the 1985 Capitals...would Bengt Gustafsson end up with a broken leg in a fantasy league?
It is also finally looking like baseball in DC is no longer fantasy. I don't have the same animosity toward Bawl'mer that I used to, but I'm still glad to see this. One question hanging is what they will call the team...the Rangers apparently still own the Senators name, and I heard local political commentator Mark Plotkin point out that Senators isn't a good name anyway, since Washington has no senators. I think that's a good point...I wonder if anyone would go with the Washington Non-voting Delegates?
It's Victor's birthday!
Now is the perfect time to go make fun of him for being an old geezer.
I know some of the eighties fashions are coming back...the trendy young people at the office are wearing Izod polo shirts. I heard a sportscaster this morning talking about how retro it will feel to see Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells on the field at RFK FedEx tonight (oops, almost got a little too retro there. RFK. Heh. Time for my Aricept.)
But this story really turned on the Wayback Machine for me:
Mount St. Helens may blow again!
For Victor's birthday, yesterday we went to see Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre downtown. The one review I'd seen had been a bit lukewarm, but we both really like the play...and how bad can you screw up Shakespeare, anyway?
It wasn't bad. I really liked the overall production...the black and white set design, the use of light and shadow...but I wasn't altogether impressed with the interpretations of Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. I wasn't sure if I was just being nitpicky until the end of the first act, when Victor's first remark was "I didn't think Lady Macbeth was such a crybaby."
So the Post's review pretty much nailed it with "From her initial, rapturous strategizing to her final haunted derangement, this Lady Macbeth is always near hysterics. The tears come too easily for her. It's difficult to credit her as the plotting, incendiary seducer, the gasoline on Macbeth's fire."
As for Macbeth himself...this summer we saw a production done by a local youth theater in which Macbeth was played by three actors, one portraying the man himself, and two sharing his monologues as his Id and Superego. It was a really effective method of developing the character. In this version, Macbeth seemed to be more of a rapid-cycling manic-depressive than someone wrestling with his urges and morals.
Less major parts, like the porter's equivicator scene, were really good.
Completely unrealted to the play...I got a kick out of signs posted all over the theater lobby that said
We are OUT of GINGERBREAD.
We do apologize for any inconvenience.
Can you imagine, a play without gingerbread? At least the apology seemed sincere.
We also had a very nice lunch at Andale. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, check out the Dia de los Muertos display in the window (on the D Street side, I think)...those marzipan skulls fascinate me and creep me out at the same time. And go in for some guacamole while you're at it.
We eat out a lot (possibly too often, but that's another topic). Victor and I pretty much take turns paying. Fairly frequently, when I am the one who pays, the server returns the credit card and charge slip to Victor to sign, and this irks the heck out of me.
I know, it's a small thing. And I don't become apoplectic or refuse to tip, it's just a pet peeve. I mean...it is 2004, the idea that a woman might be paying is hardly a shock. When they bring the bill to the table, they generally put it between us, they don't give it to Victor, so why once it is paid do they assume it was him?
Victor completely can't understand why it bugs me...he hands the check back to me, no big deal. And I'm not a hugely oversensitive feminist who goes around looking for proof that I'm being marginalized. Do I care that the server assumes I have this nice man to pay for my meals? So what if the server doesn't realize that I am gainfully employeed and have the means to pay my own Visa bill? In reality, I'm sure it is about inattention and not lack of respect...but it still irks the heck out of me.
I don't buy records very often anymore...CDs, I mean. (That I still call them "records" tells you something right there.) It's not that I don't like music, it's just that in my record-buying days (ah, disposable income, the days of working but living at home, rent and board-free) I bought enough to last me. And I know there is new stuff coming out now woth listening to, it's just that I really don't even listen to what I have already.
Once in awhile, though, I do hear about something that intrigues me enough that I will go to a record...sorry, CD...store. Most recently is was this NPR piece on Dan Zanes and his recordings of songs from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag.
Of course, I couldn't actually find Parades and Panoramas in the record stores. I looked in vain for the folk section, even asked for a clerk's help, though I'm pretty sure he was thinking "Why aren't you shopping online, you niche freak?" So I did, and though I had to wait a few extra days, it was worth it. My CD arrived Tuesday...cool stuff!
Willy the Weeper is obviously related to Minnie the Moocher, Lo que digo is beautiful (and since I don't know Spanish, a complete mystery), and my favorite, The Monkey's Wedding, is just goofy. I've been humming it all week.
Hamilton's team, Phonak, issued a statement today that they will be forming a scientific review board:
Because neither UCI nor IOC have so far disclosed data and because legal procedures may last for a long time without a clear outcome, the team management has decided to establish a scientific board in order to achieve clarity as to the medical method and reliability of these new blood testing tools. This scientific board will consist of various scientists with outstanding reputation in this field. Those scientists will be teamed up from different sources and will look into the entire method and data and report as to whether the analysis conducted at the lab in Lausanne in connection with the B-testing is reliable. In order that the scientific board can commence its work the entire files have to be released from UCI and/or IOC. This is so far not the case although requested by Tyler Hamilton.
I'm interested in this, not just from a cycling fan perspective, but from the scientific one. I have but a rudimentary understanding of the test used (in fact, I have but a rudimentary understanding of blood)...but apparently the test identifies specific proteins. It sounds to be like each person's blood is unique, and the test will show the proteins from another person's blood, proving a transfusion took place. My thought was...what if an individual person might have multiple of these unique proteins? Are they sure this never happens naturally? If I remember correctly, when blood typing first began, only O, A, and B were obvious differences; AB was discovered later.
I'd be really curious to see if blood from other members of the Hamilton family would come up positive on the same test.
I can't imagine they'd be using the test if it hadn't proven pretty reliable...I am not a conspiracy theorist, after all...but every time I see something medical presented as a definite I think of the scientific certainties that have been questioned or overturned, like ulcers being caused by Helicobacter pylori instead of overproduction of gastric acid.
So like I said yesterday, I'm still waiting.
UPDATE: I found the paper describing the test: Proof of homologous blood transfusion through quantification of blood group antigens, from the journal Haematologica.
Also, from what I see on VeloNews (which explains the first paragrah of the Phonak statement I linked to earlier; which I found a bit confusing), the B-test from the Vuelta came back positive, but the IOC's B-test from the Olympics is negative. So...he keeps his gold? But it does raise a question about the tests, if two samples from the same time period, will have different results...
I'm glued to the internet today, looking for updates on this.
ANOTHER UPDATE: He keeps the gold. The IOC statement, however, is hardly a declaration of innocence.
Damn, damn, damn.
Olympic cycling champion Tyler Hamilton was suspended Wednesday by his pro team, which threatened to fire him if he can't prove he's innocent of blood doping.(story)
Of course I want to be up in arms that Phonak ought to have a little more faith and actually stand up for him...the doping isn't proven unless the results of another sample also come back positive...but that cynicism creeps in.
I have actually reached a point where I'm not going to be shocked if any cyclist comes up guilty. Saddened, yes. Disappointed, yes. Pissed off...oh yes.
I'm waiting for the second set of test results. Hoping, but waiting.
The company for which I work is building a new headquarters building. I saw some floorplans, and the design has nice ammenities we don't have now, including a staff fitness center.
"You must be really happy about that, Nic," remarked a coworker.
I was, then I had two thoughts:
1. Coworkers seeing me in my workout clothes.
2. Seeing my coworkers in their workout clothes.
It wasn't all doom & gloom on the gridiron this weekend. Ok, the Terps turned the ball over five times in the OT loss to West Virginia, and the 'Skins managed seven turnovers in the loss to the Giants.
Hey, the amazing thing is, neither game was a blowout. Ugly, ugly, but not blowouts.
But I do cheer for one victorious team, virtual though it may: The Rockets won this week's Blogger Bowl game!
(I'm not sure if Victor is actually irked that I'm a Hot Jet cheerleader...but apparently he's trying to recruit my rats to cheer for him, if that tells you anything.)
I forgot about that time difference thing, so now I'm late...but I must add to the birthday wishes spreading around the mu.nu map for Pixy Misa!
Hope you have/had a great one, Pixy, and thanks again for making mu.nu possible.
When I was a kid, the more schoolwork I had looming, the more likely it was that I'd clean my room. In that same spirit of avoidance...of housework, bill-paying, going to the office, disappointing football...I made myself a new banner and realphabetized my links.
Yeah, that's a lot to show for one weekend.
I'm the token hockey fan at the office, so several people asked me today what I think of the NHL lockout. What is there to think? It sucks...particularly for the ushers and the vendors and the waiters at the restaurants near the arenas and everybody else who made a living working the games, but doesn't have a war chest like the owners and the union.
Personally, I'm oddly dispassionate. Maybe because we've been expecting it, maybe because I have finally gained a "just a game" perspective (time to redesign my blog, maybe.) In 1994 I was upset. This year I'm realizing how much money I'll save on Metro fare and not eating downtown two, three nights a week.
I wish we still had a minor league team nearby, like the old Skipjacks of the AHL or the Icebreakers of the ECHL. It's not the same caliber (well, after some of the games I saw last year...never mind.) I hope these guys get a nice boost from the lockout, actually, and maybe I'll watch Slapshot once a week and pretend I have a team.
I did say that if Ted does the minor-league Whoopass Jamboree I want the Pensacola Ice Pilots. Now, there are a few holes in the Civic Center roof right now, but hopefully they can get that fixed by season's start...
In seriousness, they were using the Civic Center as a shelter from the hurricane when ventilation equipment was torn off in the high winds, leaving some holes. Nobody in the shelter was injured. I was following the reports and pictures today on the Pensacola News Journal website. It isn't like I didn't care about the destruction from Charley or Frances, but I used to live on the Gulf coast, so seeing a bridge out and knowing exactly where it is is just that much more sobering.
In the job I had down there I mostly interviewed people living in towns from Pensacola to Mobile...Atmore, Flomaton, Foley, Daphne. A lot of those houses didn't seem too substantial...a lot were trailers, come to think of it. My heart really goes out to them right now, to everybody in that area.
Not surprisingly, given the toll already taken by the earlier storms, the Red Cross is asking for help...might as well send some of that NHL lockout savings their way, eh?
We're getting new phones at work. (This is exciting, because if our current phones were any more outdated, we'd be picking up the handset and asking Sarah to connect us to Mount Pilot.) These new phones are pretty slick, so slick we had to go to phone class to learn how to use them.
In class today the vendor was showing us how to customize the LCD display, and pointed out a feature called "Language." Select that, and you get a list: English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Japanese.
"This is only for the language display," stressed the rep. "It only changes the words on your LCD screen. You all understand what it does?"
We all shrugged, yeah, of course, what's the big deal?
Apparently in yesterday's phone class, someone thought we could use this option to translate the actual calls.
When I was a kid, it was mortifying to go out in public with my parents. Among their transgressions: they sang. In public. We'd be in line at the bank and they'd sing along with the Muzak. We'd hiss "Dad! Stop it! People can hear you!" and he'd play dumb: "What? Was I singing?"
The horror. The humiliation. Ok, ok, it wasn't like they were belting out tunes like they were on a Broadway stage, but still...you don't sing in public.
One night I was running errands, going from the grocery store to the pet store, and I realized mid-step that I'm hearing My Sweet Lord, but it's not coming from the loudspeakers. It's coming from...oh my sweet Lord indeed, it's coming from me.
I really wanna see you
I really wanna see you, lord
But it takes so long, my lord...
I was even singing the hallelujah part.
I called my sister and started to explain. "I was at the store, and My Sweet Lord was on the piped-in music, and, well..."
"You were singing along," she said.
"Uh, yeah."
"Just like mom and dad did, and we hated it."
"Yeah."
"I do it, too."
This afternoon I caught myself coming out of the gym:
Oh Mickey
What a pity
You don't understand...
Crap. I hope nobody heard that.
The next step in becoming my parents (well, except for the having kids part, and I'm not going there) is to hit a point where I don't care that I was singing in public.
Yep, I'm back to my more normal method of blogging, the day-to-day that doesn't require a lot of deep thought. Like football.
I'm finding that yes, I am ready for some football, as a matter of fact. Nothing like the return of Joe Gibbs to make me look forward to watching the 'Skins this afternoon. Today's Post has an article about Gibb's motivational methods...I have high hopes that this season I'm not going to be teased at the office for being a Redskins fan.
Speaking of old school football, my high school alma mater beat Victor's on Friday. We didn't make the game this year, which is probably for the best, since when we do go, his school always wins. Back in the day, this was a huge rivalry...both schools were always good (my school holds the state record for most championships, in fact) and the schools were neighboring clusters, so a lot of the students knew each other. (Now there are three schools in between, which shows the population explosion here, and the rivalry is pretty much a memory.)
I can remember the game my senior year. We won, and after the game my friends and I went to Wendy's. We were wearing goofy paper hats with the school logo, and the clerk who waited on us was thrilled, because everyone else working that night was from the rival school. He and I traded goofy paper hats, so I had one that looked like a Big Classic cheeseburger, and he gave us a bag full of extra food. My friends and I drove around for hours eating french fries, playing the radio too loud, enjoying the cool fall night...damn. I know that was a hundred years ago; why does it seem like last week?
Ok, enough geezing...I have chores to get done before kickoff.
Enjoy the day, everyone!
I didn't really know where this project was going to go when I started it last week. It just seemed fitting that in a week bookended by a tragedy and an anniversary of a tragedy that I really think about what causes hate and destruction and death, and whether there is a damn thing I can do about it.
I wrote and deleted more in preparing these posts than I have in my entire year-plus of blogging. I thought more about what I believe, and why, and how to articulate it...and I suspect I still came up short in trying to explain. I even lost some sleep over the fear that people I respect and like weren't going to like me anymore because I came off like a crackpot, but in the end...Victor still likes me, and he's the one who really matters.
Anyway...personally, for me, this week was valuable. It is making me redouble my efforts to choose positive reactions over negative ones, no matter how horrific the situation. Late in the week it occurred to me that I've been grasping for faith, a reason for my existence, a guide for how I ought to be living. I've been wanting the clouds to part with a beam of light and a booming voice to say "Nic, it's God. Here are your answers." Instead, I'm thinking...whoa, maybe this is it. I get it.
What I don't have, of course, are the specific answers for how to fix specific situations. I don't think that swords will be beaten into plowshares in a day. A generation is a miniscule part of eternity, and maybe to have hope I need to think in terms of a longer time frame. In this generation there are a few who get it and work for peace...maybe a few more in the next generation, and a few more after that.
Another thing that I believe, and that I need to remember every day, is that we are all human. There is no "those people" and "that kind;" I can be one of those people. The same zygote becomes the same baby but is born into different circumstances and taught different things. One sits here typing about peace, another is ready to blow herself up to kill a bus full of people. If what makes us different is the circumstances of our lives and what we have been taught, these external factors can change. Right up to the moment she detonates the bomb, something could change that terrorist's heart and mind. I think that is the same idea Miroslav Volf had in saying "We can never close the door to reconciliation and all our actions must be directed toward the goal of reconciliation."
I am not going to shave my head and hand out pamphlets in the airport; I'm not going to quit my job and move to [pick a violence-torn locale] and try to enlighten extremists. I'm not going to prostletize...converting someone else to my views was never my intention here, and besides, I'm just forming these views myself. My main reason for blogging is to write things down as I work them out for myself. If something I write leads someone to follow a link, to read and think things out and reach a conclusion, that's a wonderful thing, but it wasn't my objective.
And while I think I'm on the way to faith, I'm not on the way to identifying as a member of a specific religion. Quoting the Dalai Lama doesn't imply an intention to become Buddhist (Mom...not that you'd mind, I guess). So from the Dalai Lama again:
External peace is impossible without inner peace. It is noble to work at external solutions, but they cannot be successfully implemented so long as people have hatred and anger in their minds. This is where profound change has to begin.
I would never tell someone how to grieve.
I don't know how I would react if someone took the life of a loved one...these philosophies of peace and nonviolence might go right to hell if I faced the situation. I hope not, but I admit I can't know for sure. And I hope I never know.
I do believe, from my experiences with situations less than death, that rage and retribution and violent thoughts (without even the actual violence) get in the way of peace.
I think there is a lot to be learned from those who can see peace through grief, like Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, who fight the death penalty. One of the directors is Bud Welch:
Bud's daughter Julie Marie was killed in the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in April 1995. When Bud travels the country and tells about the day, audiences are drawn into one particular heart of a tragedy that they felt vividly, and in some sense collectively, when it originally took place. Bud talks about how wrecked he felt after the bombing, how strong was his desire to retaliate by killing McVeigh and Nichols himself. When he learned that President Clinton and Attorney General Reno would seek the death penalty, he looked forward to it, "because here I had been crushed, I had been hurt, and that was the big fix."What do you do with the hurting? For weeks Bud smoked too much, drank too much, felt what he now recalls as a kind of temporary insanity.
Then about nine months after the bombing, he went down to the place where it happened and stood under an old American elm tree which had survived that April day. He let his mind wander to the upcoming trials and the likely executions, and he said to himself, "How's that going to help me? It isn't going to bring Julie back." He realized that the death penalty "is all about revenge and hate, and revenge and hate is why Julie and 167 others are dead today."
A few weeks ago there was a Washington Post story about Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, who sits on stage with Islamic lecturer Akbar Ahmed to discuss Jewish/Muslim relations. Dr. Pearl's aim:
"I'm driven by pragmatics," he says. Even if he could retaliate against the murderers, "What do I achieve? There will be 100 more." True revenge, he decided, meant taking aim "at the whole ideology that created the madness." So when he tells audiences that he's offering a "weapon" -- a little intake of breath generally follows -- he explains that he wants to "tame that hate."
And there is Peaceful Tomorrows, family members of victims of September 11 who have, in the words of their mission statement "united to turn our grief into action for peace." (Thank you, Zenchick, for pointing me here.)
From their statement dated tomorrow:
Every day, we choose to create the world we want to live in, through our words and through our actions. Today, we reach out to others around the world who recognize that war is not the answer. Today, three years after September 11th, we continue to choose peace.
More from Thich Nhat Hanh today, from his book Peace is Every Step. This is the "walking meditation when angry," but I can say that the walking part isn't imperative.
Breathing in, I know that anger is here.
Breathing out, I know that the anger is me.
Breathing in, I know that anger is unpleasant.
Breathing out, I know this feeling will pass.
Breathing in, I am calm.
Breathing out, I am strong enough to take care of this anger.
When I opened the book to look this up, I reread the foreword, which was by the Dalai Lama. He said
Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.
Something occurred to me...I'm despairing because I can't fix things. Realistically I still think that what I said last week, that I don't expect to ever see a time without news photographs of horrified adults holding bloodied children, is a grim fact of my lifetime.
But I have a thought, an actual hopeful thought: Just because it won't happen in my lifetime doesn't mean it won't happen, and the world is not on my timetable.
I could spend much more than a week just sharing the writings of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Here is today's thought:
We begin by recognizing that, in the depths of our consciousness, we have the seeds of both compassion and violence. We become aware that our mind is like a garden that contains all kinds of seeds: seeds of understanding, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of mindfulness, and also seeds of ignorance, fear, and hatred. We realize that at any moment, we can behave with violence or compassion, depending on the strength of these seeds within us.When the seeds of anger, violence, and fear are watered in us several times a day, they will grow stronger. Then we cannot be happy or accept ourselves; we suffer and make those around us suffer. Yet when we know how to cultivate the seeds of love, compassion, and understanding in us every day, those seeds will become stronger, and the seeds of violence and hatred will become weaker and weaker.
True peace is always possible. Yet it requires strength and practice, particularly in times of great difficulty. To some, peace and nonviolence are synonymous with passivity and weakness. In truth, practicing peace and nonviolence is far from passive. To practice peace, to make peace alive in us, is to actively cultivate understanding, love, and compassion, even in the face of misperception and conflict. Practicing peace, especially in times of war, requires courage.
Quoted in Spirituality & Health
It is all well and good to read and agree with people like Miroslav Volf when they call for forgiveness and reconciliation, but in the great big world, I feel entirely powerless. That's one of the things that was paining me so on Friday as I watched the news from Beslan...there's nothing I can do to stop this from happening again.
Remembering the "let peace begin with me" lyric reminded me of something I wrote last winter:
But part of my...philosophy?...is that there is good and there is evil, and I need to try, constantly and mindfully, to choose good.Minor example: guy cuts me off in traffic. Not only does the bastard cut me off, he makes me miss the light. Not only that, but the sonovabitch is driving a T-Bird, a car I can't afford. I hate that jerk. Reckless maniac, I hope he wrecks the car.
Deep breath...so I'm two minutes later getting home. Big deal. So I don't have a T-Bird. I do have a car, a reasonably safe and reliable car, and I'm not standing outside in the slush waiting to catch a bus. And that guy is driving recklessly...I hope he doesn't have a wreck, I hope he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else driving that way.
Today's quote is about peace on the micro-est level, individual peace. I found it in the novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven:
Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
Thinking about yesterday's "Love your enemies " quote reminded me about something I'd read by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I went to Google hoping to find it, and while I didn't see what I was looking for, I found something else that fits right in with my theme of the week: To Embrace the Enemy, an interview with Croatian theology professor Miroslav Volf from September 2001.
Every word of it was worth reading, but here are two of the things Dr. Volf said that particularly struck me:
The naming of the deeds as evil and the protection of those who are innocent is extraordinarily important. But none of these things means we should not also seek to forgive the offender and reconcile with the offender. We can never close the door to reconciliation and all our actions must be directed toward the goal of reconciliation. Just reconciliation, of course, because justice is an integral part of reconciliation.
and
There has been much talk about "hunting down" and "punishing" the terrorists. That is very dangerous language. Animals are hunted down. That language serves to take the perpetrators out of the very community of our species—"They are the barbarians and animals, and we are the good and decent ones." I agree that we must work to find out who did it and, in a carefully qualified sense, bring those people to justice. But we shouldn't speak in a way that debases their humanity. That kind of language seems to put the perpetrator beyond redemption.
Incidentally, this interview was published on the Christianity Today site, not one of my regular reads. Skimming through some of the other articles I found myself frustrated, because there are some real hot-button issues for me on these pages. But that's another reminder for me that I can try to understand differing views and work to change people's views without, I hope, resorting to anger, disrespect, and denegration. (Another day, another struggle...another 1440 struggles...)
I honestly don't remember when I started reading about spirituality and faith, whether it was before or after September 2001. It was in that general time frame, though.
After I turned off my computer Friday night I kept thinking of more things I wanted to say on the subject of peace, and I realized that peace might not be a bad theme for this week. I'm not quite sure where this will take me...it might just be some quotes I've underlined from the books I've read over the last three years, or I might find my muse and write more myself.
I'm going to start with the Bible because that's where I started:
You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.Matthew 5:43-48
I remember in an elementry school (second grade, maybe) religion class trying to work through this with a teacher. I could actually wrap my mind around the concept of making up with the playground bully, because that had happened. But I had just recently learned about the Holocaust, and I wanted to know how this applied to Hitler.
I don't remember the conclusion then, and for a number of years I didn't think about it all. I guess I am making up for lost time.
Every time I have opened a news web page this morning I have seen a different picture of a bloodied child carried by a horror-struck adult.
I'm struck with horror myself, and thinking...I care about holiday weekend traffic? I worry about hockey?
But on the other hand, what can I do, except read the articles and feel sick?
These huge and violent situations...not my issues, not my struggles. I have no ideas at all how they can be solved, unless you count "everybody just stop killing anybody." Is that hopelessly naive? I feel hopeless. I don't expect to ever see a time without news photographs of horrified adults holding bloodied children.
This gnawed at me all day today.
I don't have any answers, but a thought went through my mind late this afternoon...actually, words to a song we sang in church when I was a kid and still went to church.
Let peace begin with me,
Let this be the moment now;
With every step I take,
Let this be my solemn vow:
To take each moment and live each moment
In peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
All I can do is my best to do no more harm, in my own small ways.
So yesterday I got back on the diet & exercise soapbox, knowing full well that I have hypocritically been a sloth this summer. I had plenty of excuses...working late, vacation, visiting family...but if I'm going to nag other people, I need to do the right thing too. I did go back to the gym yesterday ("Nice to see you again, Nic" said the owner...), and today I took my bonus money and registered for the fall lineup of charity walks:
I admit, these are not feats of superhuman endurance or strength...most are in the 3 to 6 mile range. They don't take weeks of training. My biggest sacrifice is getting up early on Saturday mornings to get out and do them.
But, they raise money for good causes, and as far as the medical conditions go, these are things that have affected and continue to affect my family. A few bucks and a few hours of walking are the least I can do.
I also like to support the Whitman-Walker Clinic AIDS Walk, but this year I have a conference the same weekend. I'll miss the walk, but did contribute to WWC.
The thing I don't like about fundraising is doing the actual raising of funds, so I actually just sponsor myself for the goal amounts. If you would like to add a donation to any of these charities, though, drop me an email and I'd be honored to accept your contribution.
I broke the point of a pencil today, and went from office to office only to find that there isn't a single pencil sharpener in the building.
Several people did offer mechanical pencils, though.
It's been awhile since I jumped on the public health soapbox, so here you go:
September is Cholesterol Education Month.
Yeah, yeah. Is there anyone left on the planet who doesn't know the risks of high cholesterol levels, who doesn't understand the links between diet & exercise and cardiovascular health?
I wonder if health educators get burned out. I wonder how often nutritionists feel like tossing their leaflets out a window and saying "Screw it, go have a Big Mac. Have two. You obviously don't care, why should I?"
I'm going to keep at it anyway...I had a pretty unhealthy lifestyle for years even though I knew the damage I could be doing, but something made me clean up my act. Who knows, maybe some random Google searcher will decide that today is his day, and may find these links helpful:
National Cholesterol Education Program's Risk Calculator
It still kills more women than breast cancer: the Heart Truth for women
Keep the Beat recipes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
The Cholesterol Low Down from the American Heart Association
Good fats, bad fats explained by the Harvard School of Public Health
My favorite good fat: avocados...not just for guacamole. (From the California Avocado Commission)