Opinion And Conscience

Downpour

Always threatening,

summer winds move laden clouds:

burst of sudden rain.

The Need To Do Good

A moment of clarity in the midst of training.

Monday night, after the last formal class had ended and we had all had dinner and I was getting in the car to drive home, I had a brief thought about work (still two days away) and everything that undoubtedly had to be done.  I sighed a little bit inside, and thought "I wish I was doing more good."

And then it hit me:  I lost the feeling of doing good.

Ask anyone in my line of work that has been in it for a while, and at some point in the conversation they will tell you they are in the field because they believe that they are doing good.  It is not only my industry, of course:  lots of people in lots of industries want to feel that they are doing good, that they are making a contribution to the betterment of something, be it society or the environment or the lives of rabbits.

But my job is really not that at all anymore.

My job is making sure that projects meet time lines.  That things get built and moved and published and hooked up on schedule.  That things moves forward.  But no sense of doing good any more.

A bit of a pipe dream, perhaps?  After all, many people do not do not jobs that result in "good".  Lots of folks simply do things that enable things to occur, like selling or delivery or cooking.  This is correct, of course - but it is certainly not true for me.

When doing good (for me, anyway) is eclipsed by making sure things are moving forward, the long hours and days begin to take a toll - after all, there will always be something else that needs to be done or a time line that needs to be hit.  It becomes a never end pursuit of destination that one will never quite reach.

I am not sure what to do with this epiphany.  All I do know is that one of two things needs to happen.  Either I need to rediscover how I am doing good where I am - or I need to be doing it or something else somewhere else.

Your New Life II

Back in March I posted this:

Turns out it is part of a larger quote, still very useful:

Of Iai Training And Background Noise

Over the past four days - including this day - my dojo has been training with the head of my sword school.

Training with Soke is a rare opportunity, as I am sure that it is with the head of anything.  We have worked very hard during these training sessions, harder than I can remember working outside of training in Japan.  Which is good, of course.

The difficulty is that the rest of my life keeps hanging in the back of my mind.

This is the weight I cannot escape from at this point of the program, the fact that work is still there (and everything I am not doing while I am training) and all of the other bits which, although perhaps not as time sensitive, still need attention.  Even though I am "on vacation", I am not, really.

Part of this - I think - points back to this idea of having a life consistent with one's values, interests and goals (yes, I realize that a life as a swordsman is a singularly impractical one - hang with me for a minute).  And perhaps while none of us can completely get there, what we can do is make an effort to close the gap wherever we can.   At least try and do less of things that are wildly removed from the things that are supposed to be doing.

(Yes, I know, that implies one knows what one is to be doing.  I am working on that.)

Which really points back to essentialism and conscious living, I think. That does make for a nice, unified package.

If only I can figure out what that really means for me.

A Leader

Conscious And Unconscious Living: Making A Path Forward

So I have established that, for myself, unconscious living is something I have been doing and conscious living is something I need to be doing.  The question is, how do I get from here to there?

Five steps, I think:

1)  Focus:  Focus on one activity at a time, preferably the activity currently being engaged in - if not, either stop and do the other activity or make a note of what the thought is and continue on with the first.

2)  Stop Multi-tasking:  There is not a great deal to say here, other than it does not lead to more actual accomplishment.  And for me, I am very bad at it.  Simply admit that you will get less done, but it will be of a better quality.

3)  Do No Activity That Also Allows You To Do An Unconscious Activity:  Simply put, this means that if I am doing something, it should not be something that allows me to do two things.  For example, watching TV tends to lead me to eat excessively - so I should not do that. Whereas, for example, mowing the lawn is all about mowing and nothing else.

4)  Train The Mind:  The mind can be trained to be brought back to task when it starts to wander.  This is related to Point 1 above, but is different in the fact that it not an activity as much as it training.  Let one thought rest at a time in the mind, then move on to the next.

5)  Do It The Hard Way:  There is a correlation between effort and consciousness.  The harder a thing is, the more engaged the mind and body is in the activity.  For example, it takes me almost no time and effort to just put up a social media post, whereas to express the same thing in a blog post is more intensive because I have to write out an entire article - so I am more in the moment.  Let us not be silly, of course: I may not build my own house when I can have someone else do it - but I can be more wise and engaged in how I choose to do the activities that I do.

Socrates is credited with saying "The unexamined life is not worth living".  If we extend that to "The unconscious life is not worth living", it might change how we view every activity that we are doing.

Conscious And Unconscious Living: What Is Conscious Living?

Yesterday I posited the concept of Conscious and Unconscious Living - and that, in at least a number of situations, I seem to be going about life unconsciously.  That said, what might Conscious Living look like?

Conscious Living: I have examples, which may define the concept.

Working out:  When I work out with weights, I am very conscious of everything that I am doing.  Why?  Because the weights are heavy and the risk for injury is substantial if one is not paying attention.  To that end, I am constantly paying attention:  to the weight, how it is being lifted and how it is being placed when I am resting, and to my body - how do my muscles feel, do I feel anything untoward or starting to give?  I am completely, utterly in the moment of what I am doing.

Iaijutsu training:  When we are in training, one is constantly aware - not only of the kata being practiced but also of one's sword placement and body placement.  One also has to be aware of one's fellow students, both to prevent injury and (as a more senior student) to observe to see if anything varies significantly.  One also aware of the placement of one's training sword - not just out in front, but the entire movement of the sword around the body, to the back, to the side.  In paired drills this becomes even more intense, especially at higher speeds:  one pays attention to doing the technique correctly and paying attention to one's partner to preserve space and distance.

Now if you ask me to define the concept from examples, I would stumble a bit.  What I would probably end on is that Conscious Living is the practice of being 100% engaged in the activity of the moment to the point that all other thoughts and activities fade from one's mind.  One is focused on the activity at hand.

That requires a high level of concentration, of course.  And that is something that modern society makes very hard to maintain.

Think about a simple example:  Once upon a time, purchasing something meant walking or driving to a location, selecting the item, purchasing the item, and then driving back home.  Now, I can do everything with the click of a button from home.  The activity is no longer a process in which I have to fully engage; instead, I can merely look, click and continue to do a second activity at the same time.

Or entertainment.  Once upon a time I had to plan a schedule around watching a show or (even more exciting) travel to a movie theater.  Now, I can watch whatever I want when I want to watch it - and do something else while I am watching it.  There is no focus, no engagement - just me deciding and then un-deciding to do something.

I compare this with my training for the last two years in Japan.  In this case, I have to travel a long way - and effectively cut myself off from the outside world.  While I am there, we are on a schedule:  we wake up at a certain time, train at certain times, eat at certain times, shower at a certain time - and all collapse in bed at certain time (that, at least is "unscheduled").  Part of what makes the experience possible is being completely engage in what I am doing - but part of it as well is that the conscious choices I would have to make are pulled from me.  I have consciously chosen to move certain decisions to the side - and thus, I can live consciously in the rest of the moment.

But if Living Consciously is desirable (and I would argue it is) but hard to do in modern society (I would argue it also is), then how do we accomplish it?

Conscious And Unconscious Living

I woke up this morning with an epiphany.  These do not happen quite as often as I would like, so I always try to pay attention.  This time, it was as clear as a bell:

You are living unconsciously.

The genesis of this whole concept has been twofold.  On the more intellectual side, I have been reading Zen and Japanese Culture by Daisetz Suzuki, slowly wending my way now through Zen and Swordsmanship (obviously of interest) and how the swordsman is always presented with the most blunt of situations, life and death.

On the less intellectual side, it is me watching movies.

Not that there is anything wrong per se with me watching movies - but what I have found over the last few times is that if I am watching movies, I tend to eat - and drink a lot.  Without really thinking about eating and drinking.  It has happened enough over the last three or four weeks that it caused me to finally start thinking about it.

Why do I (over) eat or (over drink) when I am watching movies?  In theory I am engaged in some activity (assuming that I like the movie), so it is not that.  But I eat and drink?  I am doing it unconsciously, to fill the time or my boredom.  Or really just because I am not paying attention to what I am actually doing.

Suddenly, it clicked.

To live unconsciously is to live in a very real way, without questioning anything.  It can look like a lot of different things, at least in my own experience:  a daily schedule which over time turns into a daily rut you never question; doing things and yet doing other things along with them without thinking about what you are doing or why; even multi-tasking in which some things are done along with other things that are not done well because we have to do everything together and thus some things get done without thinking in order to get done.

Living unconsciously suddenly because a way that I lived through every day.  Without thought really, just doing something - or multiple somethings - and then doing something else.

The question became, what is Conscious Living?

Inazuma

Flashes of  white light

illumine the evening's clouds:

my blade in darkness.

[Inazuma (稲妻, Lighting) is a technique in our sword school.]

Getting Rid Of More Things

We are starting to go through a giant purge in our house.

Na Clann started it.  The youngest two first, with a end of school year purge of clothing.  Then the oldest got home after 9 months overseas and she started going through her room and cleaning as well.  Suddenly, our house seems to be filled with bags of things ready to go for donation.

I have to confess that I am not immune to this need to move stuff out.  I have a rather large bag of clothing to go out as well.  And do you know what?  I still have as many clothes to wear as I ever had.

This has made me begin to look around and think about other things in my life, which seem to fall into four categories:

1)  Things I use regularly

2)  Things that have sentimental value

3)  Things that I use occasionally but are useful to have when you need them

4)  Things that I hold onto which I do not seem to use regularly, have no sentimental value, but are simply there.

Oddly enough, category 2 - items that have sentimental value - often seem the hardest to get rid of.  It is easy enough to get rid of a shirt I no longer wear; it is much more difficult to get rid a shirt I no longer wear that was given to me by someone I care about.  So I split the difference and try to work around those things.

I am not sure, for myself, what drives me into these waves of getting rid of things.  It seems to be driven by factors outside of need to purge myself, factors of what is going on my life in other places:  lost friendships, a general need to remove myself more and more from life's flow (and thus, the stuff that makes up life's flow), a general need to fall back from the tyranny of things.  So I will go through the urging and purging again, circle the wagons after, and then consider once again what I have - and why I have it.

Social Media Recovery

I am coming to realize what an addiction I had to social media.

I have come to the conclusion - through  a couple of different venues - that my time on The Book of Face is limited.  And so, I have been constricting my time spent on it even more. What has resulted is this incredible feeling of isolation and loneliness.

Loneliness?  Isolation?  Those thoughts seem ridiculous to me- after all, I am in my mid-fifties and have been around a great deal longer than social media.  The thought that this should be so is someone surprising to me.  But as God is my witness, this is exactly how I feel.

Which is odd - after all, it is not as if I was more "connected" when I was using The Book of Face on a daily or sometimes hourly basis.  Sure, I got to see what people were doing and feel as if they were involved in my life when they "approved" my posts.  But that was not it at all, if for no other reason that - when  you are not there - no-one really seems to notice.

The first reaction is, of course, the reaction of any addict:  I need to log back in.  But that really does not solve anything - in fact, not only does it extend your current addiction but you are additionally hit with the fact that your absence was really not noticed by a lot of people.  So I fight it, and try and find something else to do.  The road to recovery, I trow, will be long.

There is a second aspect to this though, and one that I find more alarming.  I am old enough to remember a time before social media and thus can imagine a time where my life is not run by it.  What to all of those who are younger and only see life through the lens of social media?  What will they do if they are "removed" because of some reason or the entire system simply crashes.

For me, it is an inconvenience and something to work through.  For them, it may be something they never recover from.

On Not Enough Problem Solving

I realized this week that I do not really do enough problem solving.

Oh, do not get me wrong.  I do problem solve.  All day.  It really seems to be the key component of my job these days:  What do you think about this?  What should we do about that?  What is your opinion on...?

But really, it is all different versions of the same problem.

The thought occurred to me this weekend while I was taking one of my semi-regular jaunts down memory lane to role playing games (hang with me, there is a point).  Role Playing games - if you have never done one - also involved a great deal of problem solving.  Of a different kind, of course - after all, deciding whether to throw a lightning bolt or fireball in a small space is a little different from real life, as is an Old World technology item which, if improperly used, will blow your character up - but still mental problem solving.

There are plenty of other problem solving things, of course - crosswords, Sudoku, even repairing items or building things.  And all use a slightly different part of the brain.

My problem, I fear, is that I am now only essentially solving one set of problems with my brain - and ignoring all the others.  Or worse, not solving enough problems at all.

What am I going to do?  Not sure, really - it is not like I can start doing crosswords or role playing full time.  But it is something to least give a little thought on.

After all, if problem solving makes you smarter and more facile (and maybe helps with your brain), why should I not be doing everything I can to do more of it?

On Developing The Inner Man

I spend a great deal of time developing the outer man, and very little time developing the inner man.

On a good week, I have 3 hours of work outs, 2 hours of Iai class, 3 hours of Iai training/practice, and 3 hours or so of aerobic - 11 hours a week.  At the same time, I maybe have 1 hour total of prayer, thinking, and reading the Scriptures.

It is not surprising at all, as I look at that, that the inner man is so greatly confused and impotent.

I need to change it.

How?  It is going to require time:  time spent in prayer, Scripture reading, meditation, thought, and writing.  It means that time will have to pulled from somewhere else for sure.  But it is an investment that I have to make.

How does one go about creating a personal development plan for internal development and character?

I have a plan (I think):

First, one needs to make a commitment.
Second, one needs to decide what it is that one wants or needs to develop.
Third, one needs to define the tools one needs to accomplish this:  books, facilities, classes, etc.
Fourth, one needs to define a specific time for this to occur.
Fifth, one must do it.

The Twisted Tree

Continued Media Withdrawal

The withdrawal from social media - and really most media in general - continues apace.

I have allowed myself again to start participating in the greater review of "media" post Lent.  What I have found - on the whole - is exactly what I left in the beginning:  there are twists and unexpected turns, but on the whole my lack of follow up has not translated into being able to stop anything or even prepare for it more than I am doing now.

The aggregator sites are really no better:  in fact, having been away and then re-visiting them again, I find them even more snarky, condescending, and doom-ish than ever.  It is interesting and informative to read about potential large disruptive events; it becomes less so when ever day seems to involve "The Big One" which, when it fails to happen, is suddenly passed on to the next event.  Think of it as the media equivalent of date setters for the pre-tribulational rapture.

I mention condescending - it had not struck me so blatantly before, but such aggregator sites and their articles are very much "look -down-your-nose" at anyone who does not see things there way (I believe the technical term used is "Idiots").  Which is fine to write and have your opinion on - but if your goal is to convert people to your way of thinking, not a terribly clever marketing plan.

Social media suffers from the same sorts of things for me:  either controversial, snarky, or just plain boring.  ("I finished cooking dinner today.")  Again, there is very little original thought or concepts being shared.   Really more of a time waster (my friend K over at Saturated in Seattle has actually gone to the extent of completely deactivating her account to save her free time and help her to use it better).

(I will say here that Instagram seems to be the one thing bucking this trend for me.  Just the posting of pictures and short movies sort of makes all of this impossible.  And it is a great way to keep up with my children.)

Blogs, of course - as I have written - are the one great exception here, and one that I am actually working on expanding my list of regularly visiting. 

But on the whole - no, social and InterWeb media continues to have less and less to offer me.  I simply assume the worst is going to happen and act accordingly. 

Connections

After writing "Too Many Friends" and then thinking about it before I re-wrote it and posted it, I realized that there was one very important aspect that I have failed to cover:  the blog.  The blog is everything that a social media site is not.

A blog is something that an individual authors and caretakes.  It is something that someone has to seek out intentionally - via an actual search or even just a click through - instead of something that is force fed when an individual logs on.

A blog is also something that someone has to take the time to respond to - not just with a click and "thumbs up" sign or a small comment but an actual response to an actual posting.  A sharing of opinions can take place between the author and the readers or even between the readers and the reader - but these are interactions, not 10 second dashed out responses.

A blog is something that author actively participates in the maintenance of, even if it is only once a week or once a month.  Everything that appears in any blog has been hand selected by the author, not merely moved from one other feed to their own.  In some actual way, it is the expression of the blogger in question.

A final thing:  a blog can become a mechanism of friendship.  We proudly have a cast of tens here (instead of the much overused "cast of thousands") that frequently or infrequently post.  Through these posts - really your posts, no third person needed - I get to see a little bit into the soul of the commenter (you).  The exchanges are often short - a post, and a response - but even in these short comments over the years, I have come to know more about some of you than of the many I know on social media where I know is the activities they do and the pictures they post. 

As always of course, thank you - thank you for your readership, thank you for comments, thank you for your patronage (not that there are any bills we are paying here of course - but if there were, you would be doing it).  Most importantly, thank you for being the InterWeb Social Media counterrevolution. 

We are few, but we are mighty.

Too Many "Friends"

One of the great attractions of social media is that you can have hundreds of acquaintances - called "friends", "followers", or just plan "virtual people I know but have never met."  Suddenly you are meeting people all across the world.  It feels, well, connected.

Except that, sadly, you are not.

For any of these services, the more people you have, the more you flow through their radar and the more they flow through yours  Suddenly, your last act is not an act that people see and react to but one of fifty that just runs together in their feed of the moment.  All of these stories become nothing more than a background tide of information, flowing and ebbing across the brief moments that people engage with it.

It is not these people are "ignoring" you (probably not, but there is always a small group that does) as they are just overwhelmed by the amount of information that is coming through - and unless you have been marked as "important", you are likely to get lost as background noise.

Suddenly, those hundreds of connections are completely meaningless as they are not really connections or "friends" but rather statistics.  And you have simply become one more of them.

No wonder so many people feel so disconnected and alone in this age when we are more connected than ever.  We have become not people and relationships, but bytes of information scrolling across a screen and we nothing more than a value, a number to be either bragged about or forgotten about but seldom engaged.

The Collapse: A Perspective.

So this past week, I had the opportunity to try a very small portion of the protagonist of The Collapse.  All the family was gone on vacation and so I spent a week living by myself.

It was not completely the same, of course. I have a much larger house and I had to go work during the week.   But other than that - in terms of contact, media, etc. - I was very much similar to our hero.

Some things that I found out:

1)  Meals when you are on your own often become very short term events, as the intent is to eat, not to eat and socialize.  They become a great deal simpler as well: more than one meal was a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

2)  It is very easy to spend non-work time not speaking to anyone except the animals.  And they make pretty good conversationalists.

3)  One can live pretty cheaply when one is on one's own.  There is little enough that you want or need outside of necessities by yourself.

4)  Just like I have found in my normal life, schedules make life very livable.  It also ensures that the important things get done.

And...5)  I do not do very well when The Ravishing Mrs. TB is gone.  Not well at all.

It was a good experiment.  I hope to continue to analyze the experience.

C.S. Lewis On Forgiveness

"I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me."

Sweet Potatoes!

Sorry for the delay this morning - I was out planting sweet potatoes.

These are all thanks to Sow True Seed.  Three varieties:  White Bonita, Beureguard, and Covington

They come in slips (I did not know that before I looked into it a bit):

Planted, about 3 inches deep and 12 inches apart:

I have never grown these before, so anything is a win!

Civilized Men

Oh, The Places Your Blog Will Go

Back hidden away under the magic "Stats" button in Blogger is a statistic of where your blog is viewed in the world.  It is kind of interesting to see:

This is by the week:

No real surprises, I guess - except for Germany?  I have a following in Germany?

The all time is even more fun:

Who knew I was a thing in the United Arab Emirates?  And more importantly, where is this "Unknown Region" that keeps coming up:  Malawi?  Mars?  Another dimension?  The information seems a bit...unclear.

I had a lot of hopes back when I started this blog, most of which have never been realized.  It does comfort me though that perhaps in some aspect, my blog is doing something, somewhere, that I had never envisioned.

A Little Overwhelmed

I will confess it to you - after all, you are all among my closest friends at this point, or at least the one's I really do talk to every day - that I have reached the point that I feel badly overwhelmed by my job.

You reach a moment where you feel like, no matter what you do, you are constantly doing the wrong thing and considerably behind the eight ball.  You try and plug a hole over here, something else happens over there. Decisions which were made - and in theory everyone subscribed to months ago - are suddenly something that no-one seems to remember agreeing to.  

Simply put, you feel like you have suddenly reached a point where the position has greatly over-reached you and that you are simply not competent for it.  If you were completely honest, you would admit that you go to work daily feeling like this may be the day that you get let go.

Yeah.  It feels like that.

I keep thinking what would be something that would turn around this situation, that would somehow make me feel empowered and on course again.  The issue is that I have yet to come up with something.  No matter what sense of progress I make, I always feel the backward pull of the outgoing tide.

Just for fun, I keep going over our "Break In Case Of Glass" budget.  Not that I think anything could happen - but I would rather know my options in the event that they do.  It is not the only thing I can do, but oddly enough, it sure feels the one I am making the most progress in.

On Changing The Shopping Of Books

Sadly, my regular visits to my local used bookstore chain are probably ending.  I have gotten myself into a quandary:  I go almost weekly, yet scarcely do I find anything that I really want to buy.

Really, it is my own fault.  My interests have become rather specialized over the years.  In some cases it was these trips to the bookstore that started me down this path - Isocrates, for example, or Procopius' History of Justin's Wars - but those were one-off purchases.  When I went back, I can never seen to find the additional works that I need to fill out the collection or series.

Along with this, there seem to be a lot of the same books there now.  The survival and agrarian shelves have grown mightily since I started going there, but let us be honest:  how many books on chickens do I really need?  (Not as many as are published, it seems.)  Some authors have virtually every book they ever published for sale (if you are a fan of R.A. Salvatore and his Drow stories from Forgotten Realms, you are set), while others (mostly the ones I grew up with in the 70's and 80's) only appear periodically at best.

What does this mean?  Basically, my options are to keep rolling the dice (unreliable at best) or simply admit that most of the books I want from now on in are going to have to come from online sources.

I am not a fan of paying the shipping,mind you.  $3.99 a pop makes even the cheapest book close to $5.00.  But I am also not a fan of continuing to waste my time idly wandering through aisles of books, never really finding the ones that I want.  It is inefficient - and I have better things to do with my time.

I will still wander in from time to time, of course - there is never something as exciting to me as a used book store.  But I will wander a lot less and find my surprise factor all the greater when something comes into view.

On The Death Of InterWeb Friendships

The falling away of InterWeb friendships is a very odd thing.

In most real life friendships, the falling away is something that one can see coming:  arguments, less frequent conversations, even downright nastiness.  But looking back, one can track a trajectory, an inflection point where one says "Yes, that is where things started to fall apart."

InterWeb friendships are not like that.  As there is (typically) no in-person interaction, there is really no way to "say" when an inflection point is reached.  Certainly, one might look to a time when contact became less frequent - but to be fair, the nature of the InterWeb is such that infrequent is often times the way the friendships work.  It just occurs: one day, you are suddenly no longer in contact with the person.  Perhaps there is an explanation or perhaps you only realize it days or weeks later when you are suddenly made aware you have not heard from the person in some time.

Oddly enough, one of the most noticeable issues from this is simply the sudden lack of routine that develops.  I suspect for many, contacts with InterWeb friends becomes an activity like any other:  most likely I will answer at this time because Y will also respond.  Or, we get used to checking to see if someone responded to our communication.  All that is gone, of course:  the responses will not be there no matter how often one goes and checks.  It is as if, in the old days, a friend moved and you kept calling their phone only to never get it answered.

What does this argue?  I am not sure.  I am certainly questioning such friendships right now as they can disappear without warning (which kind of defeats the purpose of a friendship).  It certainly is teaching me that sometimes how I use my time is not based on how people actually respond but rather the degree and the speed to which I believe they should respond.  And - like my media fast during Lent - I find it creating space in my life, space with silence that nothing seems to fill up.

We have reached the age where friendships come in to being without an explosion of emotion and end in a quiet fluttering away of electrons, never to return.  Our words, like our feelings, disappear into the great void like a program being executed.

The Church

"When viewed from the perspective of eternity, the most critical need of the hour may well be that the Church should be brought back from her long Babylonian captivity and the name of God be glorified in her as of old.  Yet we must not think that of the Church as an anonymous body, a mystical religious abstraction.  We Christians are the Church and whatever we do is what the Church is doing.  The matter, therefore, is for each of us a personal one.  Any forward step in the Church must begin with the individual."

- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge Of The Holy

A Few Words From...H. Beam Piper

"It had been the dissatisfied, of course, the discontented, the dreamers, who had led the vanguard of man's exploration into space following the discovery of the hyperspace drive.  They had gone from Terra cherishing the things that had been dumped into the dust bin of history, carrying with them pictures of ways of life that had passed away, or that had never really been.  Then, in their new life, on new planets, they had set to work making those dreams and those pictures live.

And many times, they had come close to succeeding."

"Keep a government poor and weak and it's your servant; let it get rich and powerful and it's your master."

- Lone Star Planet (originally A Planet For Texans) - [This book comes highly recommended (by me). You can find it under the title Four-Day Planet/Lone Star Planet at your local major InterWeb Book Seller.]

Looking Back

On A Broken Button

The Home Button on my phone is not working.

The Home Button, for those that do not know, is the button at the base of the phone that allows you to control the phone.  It brings up the security code log in. It allows you, when tapped in quick succession, to access individual screens or remove them all.  In a real sense, it makes your phone very usable.

And my is not working well - to the point I cannot use it at all.

There is a work-around fortunately, an accessibility option that allows you to tap a screen icon in order to access the Home Button.  But it is a two-three click process that is not terribly convenient.

So, my phone still works.  It is just a little less convenient to use.

But what I have discovered is that making it a little less convenient to use has actually been a grand thing. 

I have gotten into the habit, when temporarily bored or when the thought immediately grabs me, of reaching out to the phone and using it.  It has become almost an unconscious action.  Now, it takes time and effort to get to where I want to go.  Suddenly the unconscious habit has become a very conscious choice, one that is not "difficult" but one that takes some effort.

It appears that it is a great deal like eating junk food:  if it is there and easy it will be be done; if it is not convenient the chances that it will be eaten decreases dramatically.

Am I sorry this happened?  Initially I found it rather annoying, but now I find it rather freeing.  The "smart phone" is being put back into the place it needed to go:  not an unconscious addiction or time killer but a tool like any other, one that is used with thought and determination.

I am super hopeful no-one forces me to buy a new one...

On Breaking And Essentialism II

Occasionally - very occasionally - one gets an immediate answer to ponderings and prayers.  Unfortunately, these too often seem to be precisely not the answer one was hoping for.

I went to bed pondering in the back of my head everything about essentialism and goals and what should really be focusing on, with the slow disposal of items as the backdrop to my thoughts.  And then, like the proverbial bolt of lightning, the answer hit the following morning.

The most essential thing I am doing right now is my career.

This is not, as you can imagine, the answer that I was desirous of.  For years I have been looking at my career field of the last 20 plus years as an interruption in my true calling, that somehow my real calling was right around the corner.  I was only in the wings, waiting for my call to drop what I was currently doing and roll into the task that I was truly appointed for.

That call, however, has never come.

I had pictured that it come as an author or speaker or wise person (past versions of this had me as a performer or pastor or real estate magnate) - my time would come, the call would come in, and I could go in one morning and simply say "I am moving on to something more grand, something more fulfilling".

But it is time to face reality.

After a lifetime of waiting, the single purpose of my life is to serve God (on which all Christians agree)  - which in my case means I work well in my job, seeing it as the only job I am likely to have until such time as I do not have it, for the purposes of providing income for my family to enable their activities (including college) and having money to support the various good works of the Church. 

That is it.

That said, what then becomes essential is what makes me a better and more valuable employee in that field.  In that sense, the path is pretty clear:  more study on quality, regulatory, biology, chemistry, and information technology.  None of these are my passion, to be sure - but they are needs to happen to move forward in this most essential task.

Everything else?  It fits into a much narrower scope and is limited by the time available.  And to be perfectly honest, they are the sort of thing to balance out my life, not be the main focus of it.

Am I disappointed?  Yes.  One likes to believe that one is going on to greater and more important things; it is disappointing to realize that what one has spent one's live trying to move beyond is apparently one's destiny.

But it is as it is.  I can either continue to fight and be disappointed and unhappy or simply accept what is and make the best of  it.

We hope for our desires.  What we more often seem to get is our needs.  One can only hope that in God's economy, this will come out for the better.

On Breaking and Essentialism

Last Friday I nearly broke at work.

It was the on the tail end of what has been a rather long and hectic two month lead in to two graduations, one that has put a rather lot of strain on the energy and time of our family (I underestimated this.  Hopefully, they will be smoother from here on out).  A project, which I though I was done with, was not done at all.  We still had one graduation to go.

Needless to say, I am seriously begin to question a lot of things.

As part of this questioning exercise, I began to make a list as part of my Essentialism Exercise.  I listed activities that I have been interested in that I currently own something for, interests which seem to support those activities, and actions (which are the ways I spend my time, socially and employment).  The list for activities will probably be close to 30 by the time I am done calculating; interests were around 10 and actions were a small 4.5,

Yes, in case you are counting.  That is a rather large amount of things to be interested in and doing, especially when almost 30% of a week is consumed by work and another 35-40% by the simple acts of living.  So yes, I do have a problem and I need to resolve it.

But how?  That is always the struggle.  I can state that I will not continue to invest in activities, but in point of fact for all of my activities, the sunk costs are already in place.  It is not as stopping them will change the amount of money or time I have already invested in them.  And to "stop" something somehow feels like I am surrendering on something.

Interestingly, nothing remotely related to my career field is on the list.  Which is telling to me, although I have no idea what to do with that particular sliver of information.  As you can probably imagine, none of my activities are such that they would generate any income at all, let alone an income sufficient to even remotely replace the one I am making now.

I tried to split the difference today, going through my closet and doing another sweep of clothes I no longer need (how many Highland Throwing Event T-shirts can one own!) and papers that I have preserved over time for no particular good reason at this point.  It felt good to make that much progress - but in the back of my mind I understand this is really only a time filler at this point.  Serious surgery needs to be done if I want to actually make significant progress.

And, if last week is any indication of the rest of the year to come, I need to get my house into order rather soon.

Memorial Day 2019

For all who made the sacrifice, thank you.

(Photograph taken by Frank Glick, Fort Snelling Cemetary)

Come To Christ

Would that modern preachers preached more like this.

Congratulations Nighean Bhean!

I probably should have posted this before.  Nighean Bhean is actually graduating from high school today (I am already up, probably in line at the venue for a seat.  She made her college decision last month (almost at the last day).  She will be attending the University of Texas at Austin.

For the absolute life of me, I refuse to say "Hook 'Em Horns".  That said, I am sure she will do very well there.  She is majoring in Environmental Studies.

Do Not Live Someone Else's Life

(Mr. Jobs was a driven and unpleasant individual in a lot of ways, but he also had a lot of wisdom at times).)

Essentialism Again

This past weekend I re-read Essentialism:  The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.  It was highly recommended by my strength coach and I, in turn, recommend it as well.  His thesis is simply this:  on the whole, we are doing too much, making an inch of progress in a hundred directions instead of miles of progress in a few because we have failed to understand our purpose and the actual goals that support it.

It is probably not a bad time to be reconsidering all this:  Nighean Dhonn graduated from 8th grade and moves to high school, Nighean Bhean graduates from high school this weekend and moves on to college.  Life is changing and (in four years) will change again. 

This whole process is reflected in my journaling over the last weeks if I go over it:  writing and re-writing goals and intentions, looking for common themes, trying to balance my time.  It has been an undercurrent for a while now.

Sadly, I find myself behind most of my readers in this respect (yes, I read your blogs.  I know what you are doing).  So mostly this reconsideration is directed towards me.

What are the themes that keep coming up as I considered them?

- Iaijutsu
- Writing
- Reading (History, The Classics, Old Science Fiction).
- Ichiryo Gusoku (which covers a number of things including gardening, cheesemaking, and other self sufficiency activities).
- Foreign languages (Primarily Japanese, but there are others on the list)
- Fitness (Weight Training)
- The Ranch (Really, my heart place on earth)

I am not sure where to go, but these are the things that are constantly on my mind (and in my time management).  I am simply not sure how to go about making my life more about these things, and less about the other things that are filling it now.

Last Day Commute

So this morning I dropped off Nighean Dhonn for her last day of 8th grade.  It was the quiet passing of an era disguised as just another day of commuting.

A double ear ender of sorts: not only was it the last day for Nighean Dhonn, it was also the last day of 10 years of dropping Na Clann off for elementary and middle school.

We have been driving there for 10 years now, literally from August of 2009 (the day after everyone arrive here) until today.  For about half of those years The Ravishing Mrs. TB drove them; for the remaining years I did.

Over the years things have changed, of course, from listening to children's songs to them watching movies to Nighean Dhonn plugged into her headphones while I slowly wend my way through morning commute traffic and grumble about it.  But for eight months of the year, that was how mornings were spent.

And now, with a single car door closure, it is all gone.

It strikes me as odd, of course - this precipitous ending of eras that seem to happen in the blink of an eye.  Reading history, I rather like to think that most people see the big changes coming instead of having them just arrive, but in point of fact they arrive more quickly and unannounced than they do in a slow, stately fashion.

Next Monday - and every Monday hence - the route will change.  It will just be me in my little car, taking a direct route to work, the only occupants of my car the ghost of an era now gone and my memories.

Haloed Moon

Night rainbow Spring Moon

stands in the scudding storm clouds:

Summer is coming

Another Iris

I received my wish!  Another Iris!:

I am not very good with garden design, but my little block behind the house is coming along nicely.

Brief Life

"Brief life is here our portion,

Brief sorrow, short-lived care;

The life that knows no ending,

The tearless life is there.

There God, our King and Portion,

In fullness of His grace,

We then shall see forever,

And worship face to face."

- Bernard of Cluny

A (Few) More Words From... A.W. Tozer

"If some watcher or holy one who has spent his glad centuries by the sea of fire were to come to earth, how meaningless to him would be the ceaseless chatter of the busy tribes of men.  How strange to him and how empty would sound the flat, stale, and profitless words heard in the average pulpit from week to week.  And were such a one to speak on earth, would he not speak of God?  Would he not charm and fascinate his hearers with rapturous descriptions of the Godhead?  And after hearing him could we ever again consent to listen to anything less than theology, the doctrine of God?  Would we no thereafter demand of those who would presume to teach us that they speak to us from the mount of divine vision or remain silent altogether?"

- The Knowledge of The Holy

Good Enough For People

Old ZInfandel

Of all the wines I have tasted, I still love Old Zinfandel the best.

Old Zinfandel (or "Old Zin") is a red wine made specifically from old vines that are, for the most part head trained (e..g single plants either originally attached to a post or grown up around one) versus the trellis trained that pretty much is all that goes in place any more (there are reasons for that, of course:  It is easier to manage the vines and the production is more reliable year after year).  In some cases, the vines can be from 40 to 80 years old.

I cannot tell you fully why I like them - I like red wine in general and zinfandels in particular.  And perhaps it is just something in my head.  But I like the thought of drinking wine that is pulled from vines that have been around for a while (in some cases, longer than I have) planted in the old style (again, I am becoming more and more "old style" as well.

Two of my favorites are Bogle's Old Zin and Gnarly Head Old Zin:

Do you have a favorite wine?

Losing A Playlist

So somehow in the transfer process, I lost my I-phone playlist.

I had it on my phone, one that I had carefully built over the last 10 years, occasionally adding songs to it but (on the whole) keeping it more or less the same.  Until I accidentally added everything on my phone to the playlist. I tried manually deleting them for a while but there were too many.

No problem, I thought:  I will just delete the list and then add it.

So I deleted the list.  And then tried to add it.  And then my phone failed to synchronize.  And suddenly the "copied" playlist disappeared.

My initial reaction was shock, then anger.  How long had I had that playlist?  And now, I could not find it?  I was aggravated, searching through my computer and my phone.  Nothing.

But then I started thinking.

How long had I had that playlist?  And how many songs - really - did I listen to from it?  Not many.  And how many should I be listening to from it?  Probably even less (mostly due to the headphone and hearing issues.  I really do not need to be listening to loud music any more).

So I composed myself.  Found a partial list that I could transfer if I wanted to. I have all the songs still there if I want to recreate it.

And strangely enough, felt more free.  It was a relic that had been with me a very a long time indeed.  I will try a week or two without it.  Who knows: I may find that I no longer need that list at all and I can just "listen" to music.

Iris

One of my Irises finally bloomed.  I have been waiting 10 years.

They were originally planted in Old Home, when they were dug up and brought here.  They were planted, then re-planted in a pot, and then re-re-planted in the ground two years ago when the dog broke the pot.  Every year they had leaves but no blooms.

Irises were my maternal grandmother's favorite flower.  So I am super happy that after waiting so long, we finally got to see one.

The Loss Of Touch

As I was wandering the highways and byways of the InterWeb last week, I found a rather interesting article entitled "No Hugging:  Are We Living In A Crisis Of Touch?" (actually from 2018, but I just found it).  Having had some thoughts about the matter, I decided to make the time to read the article.

Turns out, we may be a victim of unintended consequences.

Touch, states a neuropsychologist interviewed for the article, is now associated with setting off legislative processes and hysterical processes (his words, not mine) and is creating problems for mental health because (it turns out) we need some level of touch.  It has gotten to the point, says the article, that in at least one school in Britain children were asked to band-aid themselves up rather that the teacher do it and risk a complaint.

The article has some of the science behind touch (it appears, as with so many other behaviors, there is a point to it) and some interesting facts (the high point of touch seems to about age 20, after which it declines 1% a year.  You can do the math).

This is not surprising, of course, given the current general climate that any touch, any time, any where can be considered grounds for angst - even years after the event has happened.

The market has stepped in, of course. From the article, there are now "cuddle shops" where a client can choose from up to 72 different "cuddle" services.

As I have written before, physical touch has essentially become a no-go for me.  If you are not family I have to know you well - pretty well indeed - to consider anything beyond a handshake.  It is nothing personal of course, just me trying to protect myself in a world where the slightest unwanted brush can be misinterpreted and ruin one's life. 

The fact that people will soon be paying for the service of a touch is, I think, is as sad and foolish a statement on where we have ended up as any I can think of.

Micah 4:4

"Everyone will sit under their own vine, 

and under their own fig tree,

and no-one will make them afraid,

for the LORD almighty has spoken."

(Nighean Dhonn was confirmed last Sunday.  This was her choice for her confirmation verse.)

A Few Words From...Jayne Cobb

"Shepherd Book used to say 'If you can't do something smart, do something right". - Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), Serenity, 2005

No WiFi In The Forest

Garlic

Thank God for garlic.  Without it, I would have surrendered gardening a very long time ago.  It has continued to produce for me every year since 2000.

Entitled To The Knowledge Of Others

I do not know the Patriot Nurse (https://www.thepatriotnurse.com) other than from reading an occasional reference in someone else's article (we all tend to run in the same circles as some point, do we not?) but was struck by this quote from her which was posted on Survival Blog:

“The Internet has brought us both good and bad. Like the Guttenberg press so many years ago, a revolution in widely accessible information has ushered in an era of unparalleled appetite for knowledge. Because of the non-concrete nature of this information’s platform, people lose sight of the fact that solid wisdom and experience is not free, nor is it easily gained from surfing the web. Information is a-plenty nowadays, but wisdom and real experience is preciously scarce. My degree, all of my travels and the lessons I learned to make me the healthcare professional that I am cost me. It cost me lots of money, lots of time, lots of pain, heartache, disappointment, and long hard days and sleepless nights. With Reid [Heinrichs], amp that up ten-fold.

People nowadays feel entitled to the labors of others. Instead of feeling grateful for the life experience given away, many display contempt. The astonishing thing is that people now feel baselessly superior to the person on the other end of the screen without recognizing their own limitations. Welcome to the new era of no experts, ‘free’ information. Beware of the Internet expert behind the comment section. When the lights go out, he won’t be able to help you. The tried-and-true experienced individual will.”

It is part of a larger article called "The Death of Expertise In The New Era of Free Info", one which I commend to your attention as well.  

It is a rather profound point, and one that I have intuited (but have never been able to state so forthrightly).  If you think about it, it is more and more becoming an underlying current of our society:  doctors should practice medicine, researchers should develop medicines, farmers should grow food, fire fighters should fight fires not only because it is there job but because - even if they were not being paid for it, or paid appropriately - they "should" do it as that is their duty to others.  In other words, their training and expertise exists as an obligation to others, not as the property of the individual who worked to gain the experience.

This was predictable, or course.  Ayn Rand predicted it 50 years ago in Atlas Shrugged.  You will remember, if you have read the book, how Henry Rearden came to his moment of clarity when he carefully pointed out to the government officials that their expectation was for him to use his expertise, his experience, and his money because he was "obligated" to do so for the betterment of society, not from any sense of economic benefit.  He and his company had become servants of people who could not do what he did, did not know what he did, but demanded that he serve them because of their need.

There is only one problem with all of this, of course:  when disincentivized, people stop doing things.

To the doctor, the handyman, the researcher - if they are not being rewarded for what they do, they will ultimately find another way to do it to get rewarded.  You see this now in doctors that only accept non-Medicare patients or have paying pools of patients.  You see this in the handyman that works for cash locally.  You see this in the researcher that moves to a different area or research, something that does not involve making a drug.  Society does not make experts work for others by demanding it - instead, it drives it underground, depriving society of that expertise.

One day, these people who are so demanding that others serve them will wake up and discover that they expertise they demanded no longer is accessible.  Gulliver, it will have seemed, has simply gotten out of his tiny ropes and moved on.

The Tragedy Of The Commons: A Modern View

As part of the transition from 18th Century Agricultural to Industrial England, I was introduced to the concept of "The Tragedy of the Commons".  In short, at one time English villages (perhaps many others as well) had a village commons where anyone could graze their sheep.  Over time, as other land become less and less available, more and more people would use the commons - but as it did not belong to anyone it was not cared for by anyone and thus degraded more quickly as a usable land such that in the end, no-one could use it.

Fast forward 300 years or so.

As I drive to my gym I transit under the major North-South Artery and through an underpass.  As I have looked over to the northern side, I one day noticed a pile of garbage and stuff rising up.

I have no idea where it came from.  One might think it was from those occasional road cleanups that the community service folks do.  There is an ongoing homeless encampment 200 yards away under the overpass that may contribute.  Or perhaps someone just dumped a load there (for all of the civic "We are the future", there is still plenty of that which still occurs around here).

No matter where it came from, the larger question is who is responsible for cleaning it up.  It is on at least four different kinds of property:  city, county, state, and federal (through the interstate).  Yet no-one has taken any responsibility for cleaning it up.  I suppose, if I were to ask, I would get the answer one typically gets at most bureaucracies:  "It is not our responsibility, it is X's, because they have the budget line item for it" or "Our authority ends within 25'/7 m of the freeway.  That  is a problem for Y". 

So, it really belongs to no-one.

Mind you, the pile is just sitting there in our humidity and heat and rain, slowly rotting away and providing a breeding ground for mold, yeasts, and who knows what vermin.  And I am sure that there are some level of individuals (like myself) that drive by it every day and notice it.  And yet there it continues to sit, an eyesore and dumping ground that grows and spreads.

The ultimate breakdown of societies is not always tied to a major failure or event.  It is just as often tied to the simple development that no-one takes care of the major things that society needs to get along - until, like the commons, they are no longer able to be used by anyone.  And once no longer able to be used, things tend to collapse rather quickly.

A Second Thought On An Open Letter To Men

Brett and Kate McKay have posted a wonderful (and telling) article over at The Art of Manliness called "Marriage Isn't A Game of Russian Roulette".  It is less than 1,000 words and rather short but but pithy, so I do commend it to your attention.  In short (and I do not it justice), the thesis is that rather than marriage being an unknown risk with more bad outcomes than good, it can be something that one goes into with risk assessment for a better outcome.

(If  you would like, feel free to take a moment and review it.  I will just be here, drinking coffee....Read it?  Great!)

I do not find any of the recommendations or suggestions in the article at all unreasonable - in fact, they are pretty good ones and ones that (looking back) I probably would have benefited from in my (rather anemic) dating life as a whole, once upon a time.  But what I find terribly interesting is that they feel this sort of article needs to be written at all.

As I have commented before, this is one of the most dangerous times (socially) to be a man of any age or status, but especially one who is dating.   Almost anything you do is likely to be carefully scrutinized and judged against what the "new social culture" says a man should be.  You are incredibly open to misunderstandings, outright accusations, or social shunning.  So while I was a little surprised that this article came out now, I am not surprised that it came out at all.  I suspect the cultural backlash of men to the current society has begun, and is becoming noticeable enough that something had to be said.

My recommendation?  I do not really have a dog in this fight specifically any more, but my comments now would be as my comments then (and really, no different than the article):  Risk management and risk avoidance are the best paths forward.  Carefully come to know the women you are dating - mostly in public venues where the risk of single source accusations are at a minimum.  Assume your actions will always be misinterpreted, and instead hold yourself to a business level interaction (be professional, be thoughtful). 

And to re-emphasize one of the article's points, if you have a hint of anything untoward or concerning, walk away.  The risk, any more, is simply too great.

Silence

Friday night I watched the 2016 movie Silence. 

The movie is based on the novel by Shusaku Endo and follows the travels of two Jesuit friars to Japan, who have heard that their mentor, Father Ferrerira, has renounced Christianity due to the persecution taking place in the mid-17th century.  They set out for Japan, knowing that if they are captured it could cost them their lives.

The movie follows these two friars as they make contact with the kakure kurishitan, the "hidden Christians" who exist in the midst of a very active persecution of Christianity.  They move from village to village and separate until the main character, Rodrigues, is captured by the local magistrate's men.  From then, it becomes a struggle of wills between the magistrate Inoue Masashige and Rodrigues to make him renounce his faith (the Japanese learned that forcing a priest to apostatize was far more effective to their ultimate cause than killing individual Christians).

The movie is based on actual historical events (which I previously knew little about) and was directed by Martin Scorsese (he of The Last Temptation of Christ fame).  I would recommend the movie, except that one should be prepared to be disturbed.

The depictions of the persecution of the Japanese Christians, although not gory, is certainly difficult to watch - more so knowing that it is based on historical events.  The atmosphere of fear, of constantly living under the threat of discovery, is palpable.  Christians are tied to crosses at low tide and then battered and drowned at high tide.  Christians have water from hot springs slowly poured over their bodies, burning them.  They are hung upside down and slowly allowed to bleed out.  They are (in one case) beheaded.

The main character, Rodrigues, struggles constantly with the silence of God.  Why are these Christians being made to suffer?  Why has God not acted?  If he apostatizes Christians may be saved - but what does that mean about his relationship with Christ?

I cannot discuss the movie itself more than that without revealing the plot - but I would argue that it is an important movie for every believer to see because it asks real questions about the role of faith and outward Christian living in the midst of a persecution none of us has ever had anything like in our lives.

It is one thing to be asked to renounce our faith to avoid being ostracized on social media.  It would be another thing entirely to do it knowing that such a decision may be the choice between life and death - for ourselves or others.

Concentration and Srength

Affections Of A Worthy Woman

The Collapse XXII: A Quiet Waiting

06 August 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

Have you been listening to the radio of late? I generally tend not to as I find myself becoming either aggravated or depressed (or occasionally, if I listen to the music of my youth, nostalgic) but after my shopping trip of a few days ago, decided that it might be worth “tuning in” (as they say) to see what people are saying.

I have to confess I find the whole thing rather alarming.

On the one hand, I listen to the local national news broadcasting stations. To listen to these, it appears that all we have been experiencing recently is a rather small problem, a “hiccup” in the economic engine of the United States (and the world, apparently) easily resolved in a few days. Certainly, there may be individual outages or slight inconveniences, but on the whole things are fine and carry on about your business.

To listen to the call in shows – either local or where I can find them on the InterWeb – is a very different thing entirely.

What I experienced seems to be not the exception but the rule – not only in the country in general, but almost everywhere (so far as I can tell) – in a few places better, in many places the same, in some places far worse. I am (once again) grateful that I live here, far away from any large population center that would give such events the place to flourish.

Have I noticed anything different? Not particularly – except that traffic has slowed to an unusual event now. I have perhaps seen 20 cars over the last two days when (in usual high tourist season) I would see far more.

Have I acted differently? Again, not particularly. I have not a made driving trip since my shopping trip six days ago, but that has been known to happen in the past. I have taken the liberty of reorganizing the workshop and going through items and storing them or putting them away, or at least making them not so obvious if someone were to look in. I have also completely recleaned my closet and reorganized the supplies there as well, more to just verify what I have in place rather than from any particular need.

The thing I have heard – at least in the radio shows with callers – is the fear in the voice of some of callers. I have not heard this sort of fear for many years.

It has made me sit up and take notice.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Hated For My Name's Sake

Luke 21:17:  "And you will be hated by all for My name's sake."

Matthew 24:9:  "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated for My name's sake."

Mark 13:10: "And you will be hated by all for My name's sake.  But he who endures to the end will be saved."

Christ was brutally honest how He expected His followers to be treated, both in His time and at The End Of The Age - and by extrapolation, during all time in between.  Yet I cannot think of the last time that I heard a sermon preached on any of the above verses.

Why?  Because they are hard to hear.  Because they go against the grain of human existence, the desire to be liked.  Because it promises nothing in this life but derision, disgust, and hate (I mean, beyond forgiveness of sins and eternal life, of course).  Because we try to find ways to connect to the world on all levels, instead of speaking Christ's words of life to a dying world.

Do we grasp that?  Do we understand this?  Or are we so dependent on the world liking us, so convinced that we have to be "relevant" to matter, that we would rather be hated by God for the world's sake? 

If the church has become the desire of the world and its system, then - per Christ's words - we are doing something terribly wrong.