Installment # 68

Upon reflection, I naturally and routinely placed complete confidence in the medical professionals probably because Mom and Dad held them in such high regard.  As high school drop outs, they were in awe of the incredible amount of education and training required to become a medical doctor, and I probably picked up their values in that regard.  I used to scoff at people who said they were afraid to go to the doctor, because they were afraid of what they might find out.  I was always the opposite: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as the saying goes.  I would rather catch things early and so improve my chances of overcoming anything that the doctors might find.  More recently I have come to appreciate the concept of “false positives” and the overreactions that are perhaps the norm among medical professionals: better to do more than necessary rather than risk criticism for doing too little.  I’ve also seen that if you keep visiting your doctors, they will sooner or later find something to treat – often something not necessary to treat.

I suppose that age spots need no explanation, but when they are happening to you (and they will someday if you are reading this, whoever you are) it can be quite unsettling.  Almost every day it seems I notice a new spot or blemish and make sure it doesn’t look like something that should be checked out by the dermatologist.  It is disconcerting to glance down at the back of your own hands and not recognize them.  I have always had prominent veins in my legs, and now with the various age spots that can look like warts and welts I fear I will scare the kids at the pool!  “Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?”  Sandy and I make quite a pair.  She has real varicose veins from giving birth.  I tease her by telling people, in her presence, that our grandkids try to spell their names with the veins in her legs.  She can’t stay mad at me, because I make her laugh!  Sandy is bothered by arthritis way more than I am so far, particularly in her hands.  But it makes me more useful in retirement, as she calls upon me to open or close things that she can’t manage.  How weak her hands really are was brought home to me the first time I had occasion to wring out a washcloth after she had given it her best.  There was so much water/moisture left!  I was surprised.

I have scars from the ankle injury I mentioned, plus two foot surgeries and one arthroscopic knee surgery – the surgeries all related to running injuries.  The knee surgery was really 3 operations in one.  A few days after the surgery I got an infection requiring immediate hospitalization, where the attending physician had to go back in and clean out the area.  I remember when they nonchalantly removed the tube from my knee the next day I practically shot straight up toward the ceiling in pain, but it lasted only a moment.  That was when I first experienced morphine and thought I was allergic to it.  I had never had ghoulish nightmares before.  It was all the more frightening because I had never knowingly put such thoughts into my brain.  I didn’t watch creepy movies back then; I didn’t read books like Stephen King’s; I couldn’t figure out how such thoughts and images had gotten inside me in the first place.  It made me contemplate the real possibility that humans have a natural “dark side” that we are more or less born with.  I have since come to realize that ghoulish nightmares are a common side effect of morphine and that I am not allergic to it.   Ironically, since then I have found I enjoy scary, creepy movies and, as mentioned, have no trouble dismissing the ideas and images from my mind and enjoying an untroubled sleep.

But as to operation #3 on the knee, I was attending physical therapy (PT) on a regular basis, but was unable to regain my range of motion.  Too much scar tissue had formed.  So…back to the Operating Room.  The doctor told me that once I was under the general anesthesia they would go in and decide whether to try to break up the scar tissue via arthroscopy or whether to do it manually.  When I regained consciousness in the Recovery Room I was informed that the biggest, strongest attendant in the OR had done it manually with one swift crunch.  No wonder I was craving pain pills.   In the first few PT sessions thereafter it seemed like I still would not be able to regain my range of motion, but we finally had a breakthrough. 

I so remember the moment that the knee moved past the previous limit.  I knew at the same moment the therapist knew that we were going to be successful.  He had previously used every method he knew and some he invented to try to get the leg to move.  We would both be panting and sweating, trying to get movement, but finally it was there. That was in January 1999.  I ran a 4-mile race in February (not very fast!) and was on a relay team at the Big Sur Marathon in April of that year, where I was back to normal.  I started my brief triathlon career that May at the Pleasanton Tri-for-Fun events.

When I decided to just “live with” my shoulder impingement I tried sleeping sitting up so that my right arm could hang, or dangle while I tried to sleep.  That helped tremendously!  In fact, my low back felt a lot better in the morning, as well.  I had already given up trying to sleep face down, but on the side and face up were also resulting in an aching low back in the morning.  Once I started sleeping in more of a sitting position, with a large pillow under my knees, I did much better.  I seldom stay in that position all night; I take some breaks on one side or the other, but when the pain starts, I am more than ready to sit back up.  I also find I breathe a lot better sitting up, as opposed to flat on my back.  You can breathe more deeply sitting up.  Actually, I don’t sleep at a 90 degree angle; it is more like a 45 degree angle and I gradually slide down until I wake up enough to sit back up.  It probably sounds awful, but it is better than my alternatives.

I used to sit up in bed reading while Sandy tried to go to sleep; then I started reading in the other bedroom and quietly coming to bed when I was ready.  When I started propping myself up with an assortment of various size pillows and backrests, I would bring the whole set up into Sandy’s bedroom when I was ready to go to sleep.  But it was quite a production to go through in the dark while trying not to wake her up.  Eventually I asked myself, “Why don’t I just sleep in the other room where I am reading?”  Sandy was OK with it.  Thus began the era of separate bedrooms, which I hear is not that unusual for older couples, especially if one has special needs.  Sandy is not missing much cuddling, because I could never sleep touching.  I break into a sweat every time.  Pam and Mark have a much newer relationship, so when he heard about our arrangement he was predictably scornful.  But I assured him that I had visiting rights.  He still was not appreciative of the situation.

I consider the accumulation of “issues” from ages 60 to 70 – the aches and pains and limitations that I have been describing – yet I seem to be in denial about a further accumulation from age 70 to 80, and of course age 80 to 90.  I bravely, if naively, look forward to living as long as possible, knowing on some level that it is going to get harder, not easier.  I think I am going to need my bubble and my ability to live in my mind if I am going to enjoy the “old old” years.  I have recently decided to do better about my intake of simple sugars and to monitor my physical indicators better.  The Excel file name is “Tom Tracking” and the tab title is “Reach 100,” so it is no secret what my goal is. 

I have set up some columns to track body weight and circumference on a weekly basis, and body composition and blood work results on a 2 to 3 times per year basis.  After 3 weeks, the body weight and circumference results are dismal at best.  I’ve lost less than 3 pounds, and my circumference has not budged from 41 inches.  That measure, by the way, is with a cloth tape around the middle, right across the navel, which is said to be the most appropriate measure of belly size for a male.  I call it my circumference rather than my waist, because I can wear size 36 waist pants and even some size 34s, but that is deceiving.  The guideline is that my belly circumference should ideally not exceed ½ of my height in inches: So if I am 5’8’ (= 68 inches) my circumference should ideally be no more than 34 inches.  The pants that I wear can give the false impression that I am really pretty close to ideal, which of course I am not. 

My body composition work up, per the YMCA analysis on April 18, 2014, showed that I need to lose just 8.2 pounds of body fat and do not need to gain any lean body mass, so a net of 8.2 pounds.  However, the way the body works, if I were to lose 10 pounds, it would not be all body fat.  I would likely still not need to gain any lean body mass, but would still need to lose some body fat.  The prescription for me is cardio and diet.  We’ll see.  I will do what I can.  The blood lab workups are tracking cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar (glucose fasting).  Thanks to prescription medicine, my cholesterol is fine, and so are the other indicators.  I am in no danger of slipping into what they call “pre-diabetes.”  One amazing and encouraging finding is that, at age 70, I am continuing to build lean muscle mass.  Over a 27 month period, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) increased from 1,742 to 1,779.  The literature states that, “BMR is directly correlated with Lean Body Mass.  With age, muscle depletes and BMR steadily decreases.” I must have good genes in that regard.  So with all these factors going for me, plus my natural inclination to live as long as possible, I have decided to make it a priority to treat my body as well as possible and see if I can get to 100 years of age.

From an early age of adulthood I recognized and spoke about two attributes of mine that I have come by naturally and which have blessed my life: an “attitude of gratitude”, and a tendency not to “cry over spilt milk.”  I mentioned that I get to the 5^th step of grieving, that of acceptance, rather quickly.  But it is not just in grieving.  In response to any adversity or disappointment, as I have expressed it to Sandy, I mentally kick something, say a few curse words to myself, and move on.  Forget about it.  That is not true in personal relationships, however.  If I have hurt someone or harmed my relationship with someone, I try hard for a long time to make it right.  Only very reluctantly and slowly do I accept that the relationship has been permanently changed and may even be over…then I kick something and move on.

As I have said, it is a gift to live into old age, compared to the alternative and to the fact that a lot of people do not get to do so.  Despite how carefully I may take care of myself, a fatal accident or medical diagnosis could happen at any time.  Besides tumors and cancers coming out of nowhere, our vital organs can give out at any time, and the older we are, the more likely.  I guess this is where we came in.  I said at the start that “The end of your days may come abruptly and unexpectedly or, on the other hand, you may not have the faculties to think, remember and express what you want.”    I do remember when I was in my early 60s a fellow in his late 60s had bought a new car and said to me, “This might be the last car I ever buy.”  That thought startled me.  I haven’t bought a new car since 2007, so there should be one in my near future.  Thanks to that guy, that thought will probably be running through my head as I drive off with my new car.  I wish he hadn’t said that.

This may not be the end of my written story, but for now I should let it be so.

Installment # 67

I remember as the weather turned warmer each spring we would badger our mothers to let us go “bare belly” (no shirt).  Summer had started for us the day we were allowed to go bare belly, regardless of the calendar date.  It was probably sometime in May.  The last day of the school year was incredibly exciting.  It was like the end of the old life and the beginning a new life.  When you are elementary school age, the 10 weeks or so of summer ahead seem like forever…freedom forever!  On Long Island, and I suppose most places, March-April was kite season, among other things.  I recall more than once working painstakingly, putting my new kite together from a kit and then having it crash to earth or get wrecked in a tree on its maiden voyage.  It is heartbreaking when you are 8 or 9 years old.  We used to cut colored cloth into strips to make a special kite tail that would hopefully be the envy of the other kids on the block.  If somebody’s dad helped them too much, we would declare that wasn’t fair.

There was usually at least one summer rain storm that left puddles several inches deep, and our mothers would let us get our bathing suits on and play in the puddles, always with the warning to make sure there was not broken glass or rusty nails hidden under the water.  As I recall, we never looked for such things, despite promises made to Mom, and we never stepped on any such things.  Mom told us about lock jaw…how a person could get lock jaw by stepping on a rusty nail.  I remember her showing us with facial expressions what a person who had lock jaw would look like and how they would sound when they tried to talk, and that they would spend the rest of their lives that way.  We were in fear and awe for a few moments, then would go around imitating someone with lock jaw, or even pretend that we had just stepped on a nail and really had it.

Most people in my generation have circular marks high up on the left shoulder where we received vaccinations against small pox.  The vaccination was not given routinely after 1971, when small pox was considered eradicated.  Sandy’s mark does not show at all anymore, but she thinks she can still see some faint evidence of mine.   There was also a polio vaccine that we all received.  Per the Internet, an oral vaccine was approved in 1962, replacing the injections.  Polio was a serious threat during my childhood days.  It was not unusual to hear that a neighbor knew someone who had been stricken with polio.  It was at least as common as pancreatic cancer or a severe brain tumor would be today, though not as fatal.  It was more of a crippling disease.

Life expectancy in the United States has increased dramatically, but it has been pointed out that the definition of old age really has not changed.  It is just that more people are reaching it.  Life expectancy is based on averages, and averages have improved dramatically mostly due to the eradication of childhood diseases and improvements in child birth procedures.  Age 75 is still “old”, with age 65 being the “young old,” and age 85 being the “old old.”  I told this to Aunt Dot when she was 93 and she asked, “Well then what does that make me?”  I think I said “Ancient!”  Many people over 90 are looking forward to “getting it over with,” and many people (like Sandy) do not even want to live that long.  Aunt Dot is not like that, though.  I have never heard her say that she wishes the Lord would take her home, or that she is looking forward to leaving this life, even though her strong faith tells her that she can look forward to a great heavenly reward, and to be reunited with Uncle Harold and other loved ones who have gone before.  Cousin Harold agreed with me and said that she so loves being around her grandchildren and great grandchildren that she is in no hurry to pass on, despite the difficulties that come with advanced age.

Cousin Harold has been such a rock for his family, especially for his mother, Aunt Dot, and for Uncle Harold in the years prior to his passing.   Without going into any medical details, suffice it to say that Cousin Harold made it his business to understand everything the medical professionals were saying, and made sure his parents were following orders.  He is over at Aunt Dot’s early every morning making breakfast for her, partly to ease her burden, and partly to monitor what she is eating.  He understands medical terms better than probably 90% of the population, and is not shy about challenging the doctors and nursing staff personnel when anything doesn’t sound right to him.  Harold is the nicest guy in the world, yet carries himself with an authority that makes people reluctant to cross him.  Aunt Dot has said to me many, many times, “If God was only going to give me one child, He sure gave me the right one.  Harold has been the best son any mother could ever have wanted.”  I told her recently that she was not just being biased.  He really is.  I told her that Don and I are both in awe of Harold and the way he handles himself and serves the people around him.

I can sure relate to the fact that we have to deal with more and more aches, pains and limitations as we get older.  I started in my early 30s with low back issues that were diagnosed over the years by chiropractors and medical doctors as stemming from anything from injury to birth defect.  One chiropractor said that a pair of vertebrae in my lower back was turned 90 degrees, creating a weakness that could not be fixed.  He explained that if all my vertebrae were like that I would have the Hunchback of Notre Dame affect.  Another said that my sacroiliac was fused to my spine at L-5.  They are supposed to separate as we grow during childhood.  Still another said that my spine was not seated low enough into my pelvis region.  He likened it to putting a fence post into the ground, but not sinking it deep enough.  It creates an unstable low back.  Regardless of exact cause, I have needed good support when sitting; including office chairs that do not lean back and are not on wheels.  Until recently I avoided exercises and activities that would strengthen my abdominals (abs), because they put too much pressure on my low back.

About ten years ago I received great benefit from a chiropractor who is also an accomplished runner.  He showed me some subtle exercises for my abs and low back (collectively my “core”) that strengthened without challenging my inherent weaknesses.  Around the same time I started at the YMCA gym, and was very selective as to which exercises I did and how much weight I was using.  I stayed with the machines, which really control the movements, focus on one small set of muscles at a time, and protect from inadvertent injury.  After a few years I found I was doing so many reps, with so much weight, that one of the trainers there challenged me to do somewhat more demanding exercises, especially for the core.  He said that if you are doing 50 reps of something, especially related to the core, then you need to do something more challenging and build up to maybe 20 reps.  He also gave me a combination of isometric and explosive moves, and exercises to target the upper, lower and deeper ab muscles.  I have been doing things now that I never thought I could do.

Unfortunately, X-rays are showing degenerative disc disease in my low back that has progressed to “severe.”  I can’t run anymore, and I need to be careful carrying anything on the heavy or awkward side while walking, such as a heavy suitcase or ice chest.  My primary care physician at Kaiser advised me to let running be a thing of the past for me.  My running chiropractor advised me to run as much as my body would let me.  I of course did the latter for a few months until finally concluding that the pain was getting intolerable. I needed more than one day off between runs, and I started to believe that I really was doing myself more harm than good.   So that is one area where I can relate to the aches and pains of living into old age, though I am still in the “young old” category according to my earlier definitions.

I have also developed a shoulder impingement and elbow tendonitis, both on my dominant side (right side).  I guess tendonitis is a form of arthritis.  I was told that the common name for what I have would be “golfer’s elbow” as opposed to “tennis elbow.”  The latter is felt on the outside of the elbow; mine is on the inside, closer to my body.  Both the impingement and the tendonitis could be brought on by trauma or overuse, but probably are just part of the aging process in my case.  The prescriptions are either: a) careful range of motion and strengthening exercises, or b) surgery.  I have tried a) in a variety of ways and have given up.  Anything I do seems just to aggravate the situations.  If I was younger and still trying to improve in running or lifting or anything like that, I might consider surgery, but at this point…no thanks.  So what I am left with is: accept these limitations and work around them.

I alluded to my history of running injuries earlier.  One that is still with me is a collapsed transverse arch that requires me to wear full-length prescription orthotics.  I cannot walk for long without my orthotics and not barefoot at all.  It is a real nuisance around the swimming pool or when boating.  I don’t know whether to blame this on running or whether it would have happened in my case, anyway.  That is one of the issues of living a long time: some of your activities that were overdone or maybe ill-advised in the first place have a greater chance of catching up with you the longer you live.  Hopefully that does not include the smoking I did from ages 18 to 34.  As mentioned, medical science is now finding that we do ourselves some noticeable, permanent harm, but hopefully it will not become more pronounced as I get older and my lungs naturally lose more capacity.

Let me add to this litany a compression fracture, two sinus operations, weird age spots, and an infection of the epididymis.  The latter at first sounded to me like something having to with the skin (epidermis), so something maybe superficial.  It turned out to be something more serious having to do with the male reproductive organs.  I had experienced some bleeding from my penis, and was really freaked out about it, as most any male would be.  I must have blocked some of that from my memory, but I think I was mainly on antibiotics, and the symptoms cleared up in ten days or so.  But I worried about it longer than that, watching for any sign of a recurrence.  The compression fracture is in my mid-back region.  I had a few episodes during 2010 where it felt like my back was “seizing up” on me.  The back of my arms would get tingly and numb, I would be dizzy, and would start to have trouble breathing.  I learned to sit down and calmly breathe as best I could until I started to feel normal.  These seizures only lasted 2-3 minutes, but were alarming and puzzling.  Such instances increased from about once per week to about every other day, then went back to about weekly, then diminished to about once per month, then a few times per year, and as I sit here I think I haven’t had one for about six months.  I learned about the compression fracture via X-ray as I sought medical attention.  That was a scary time, too!

My sinus issues began with a 360 degree X-ray at the dentist office that showed some strange bits of bone or dental material lodged way up in my head, behind my eyes, near the back of my skull.  The dentist highly recommended that I have it checked out by a nose and throat specialist, with consideration for removing it surgically.  I had it double/triple checked with medical X-rays and an MRI.  All agreed that there was something there, but not all agreed that someone should go in there and surgically remove it.  There are always risk/benefit trade-offs.  I knew I was stuffed up on one side and wasn’t breathing as well as I should, but when you have lived with something for as long as you can remember, you really don’t know what “normal” should feel like.  I even wondered whether I would be able to run faster if I could breathe better.  The recoveries from both operations were nightmares, which I won’t go into.

The first operation was through a PPO, where I had met my annual maximum co-pay before December, so scheduled it for December.  The second was a couple of years later at Kaiser, where timing didn’t matter.  The specialist at Kaiser examined me per my request, because I didn’t feel like the first operation had improved my breathing much and, sure enough, there were 2-3 things that needed to be taken care of, including a tumor on the back of my skull that apparently was benign, but ought to be taken out.  I also still had a deviated septum, among other things.  The PPO doctor had jokingly advised me, pre-surgery, not to name it – as if I thought I was giving birth to something, and it might not live!  Kevin teased me that it was the twin brother I never knew I had.

Both operations were under general anesthetic.  At Kaiser I remember letting the anesthesiologist know that I realized that he was the most important man in the room, because he was going to keep me breathing during all this.  He was going to keep me alive!  I reminded him a couple of times that we needed to remove my upper partial before the operation to make sure I didn’t choke on it, and that I didn’t want to lose them.  He assured me that he would have me remove it myself, just before I went “under,” and that they would be with me in the recovery room.  Well, he waited until nearly the last second to have me remove them; then the last thing I heard was him saying, “So we’re doing a vasectomy here, right?”  I had just enough awareness left to realize he was kidding and then I was out.  I never saw him again to tell him that was funny and that his timing was perfect.

Installment # 66

I have used the word “Google” as a verb in some cases here, as in “to Google” something.  In case that has no meaning to some future reader, please note that the company, Google, created an Internet search engine that was the favorite of most users for many years, so to look something up on the Internet was to Google it.  But I have lived long enough to know how brand names can fall into disuse.  As I was growing up the refrigerator was often called “the Frigidaire” because that was by far the most common brand in people’s homes – at least in the working class homes.  The record player was referred to as the Victrola.  The premier photo-copy machine for many years was made by a company named Xerox. For many years after it was no longer the best or most common machine, to photocopy something was still to “Xerox” it, and a photocopy was a Xerox copy.  I think chesterfield and davenport are still types of couches, but even as a young adult I would still routinely hear couches of all kinds referred to as “the chesterfield.”

Mom and Dad often referred to the refrigerator as the ice box, because in their day people didn’t have an ice unit attached to a refrigerator.  I remember reading the instructions on the side of a package that said, “refrigerate…do not freeze” and asking how that made sense.  Didn’t it mean the same thing?  Once it was explained to me I no longer used the terms refrigerator and freezer interchangeably as I had heard my parents and others doing.  We hear jokes about the milk man or the ice man, and young people may wonder where that comes from.  I guess there is still home delivery of milk in parts of the country where it is difficult to get to the store in the winter time, but back in my parents’ day it was common everywhere.  Milk didn’t have a long enough shelf life for it to sit on the grocer’s shelf until the consumer came and bought it, and then to stay fresh at home until consumed.  And once a mother stopped nursing, a fresh supply of milk was vital for the baby. Ice, of course, was delivered to help keep things cold or frozen when the average household had very limited-capacity appliances or no such appliances at all.  I do remember watching a man in a warm uniform, with hat and gloves, coming up to the house carrying a large block of ice, using a giant set of tongs.  It was not a job for the old or the weak.

Reflecting on other things that have changed over the years, we used to call the TV repairman to come to the house and fix the television.  The television was called a “set” because it consisted of a bewildering collection of tubes and buttons that were accessed from the back by removing the cover.  Many of the tubes had warnings about not touching them under one circumstance or another for fear of doing worse damage.  That may have been seen as a challenge for the most mechanically inclined, but you can bet it served as a deterrent for me.  Now of course we have what I call “solid state” technology, which may be a misnomer on my part, by which I mean that the TV is not designed of manufactured in such a way as to permit the untrained, non-specialist to troubleshoot and/or possibly fix a problem.  Problems are not mechanical, but electronic.  So now we take the TV down to where we bought it and either leave it to be fixed or, more likely, receive a replacement.  If it is out of warranty, there will be a charge, or we may find that it is more sensible to just buy a new TV.  The latter is true because in the space of the 2 or 3 years time that the TV lasted, the technology has advanced such that it just makes more sense to get a new one.

The occupation of TV repairman has gone the way of the guy who fixed small motors, such as lawn mowers, chain saws, sewing machines, kitchen appliances and the like.  Not only are these machines “solid state” or whatever the correct term is, but they are relatively less expensive than in the past, and they become obsolete quickly.  It just makes more sense to buy a new one, with state-of-the-art technology and features, than to try to repair or replace the old one.  This has led some to refer to a “throw away” society.  It does not concern me that we have better and better stuff for less and less money, but it is true that we have a growing disposal issue.  Where are we dumping all the throw- aways?  It is no wonder that recycling has become a major issue and topic of conversation these days.  Another consequence of all this is the importance of education and training.  The people who can keep up with the technology and succeed in an electronics environment, as opposed to the old, slow-changing mechanical environment, need a demonstrated ability to learn and grow in their chosen fields.

The high school dropout is increasingly a workforce “dropout” who can do little better than minimum wage, so has little incentive to work.  My personal theory is that this, along with a seemingly bewildering income tax code, is creating an “underground economy” of people working for cash “under the table,” to coin a phrase, and not reporting taxable income.  Their employers are often sole proprietors who likewise report minimal revenues and do not need the wage deductions on their tax returns.  (The money they save in employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation insurance and benefits, W-2 reporting and related bookkeeping, etc, more than make up for the minor-if any-benefit of the tax deductions).

Another interesting transition Sandy and I have lived through is from the girdle to pantyhose to bare legs.  During the first few years of marriage Sandy and all her contemporaries needed to wear girdles in order to attach fasteners to the tops of their stockings.  You couldn’t wear stockings without wearing a girdle, because you couldn’t hold them up.  I guess there were less cumbersome garter belts or something, but the women also liked the way the girdle flattered their figures.  The transition to pantyhose was accompanied by widespread concern (no pun intended) that a woman would go bouncing along, revealing too much of her ample attributes.  We men didn’t mind at all, though it is true that a woman without a girdle confirmed whatever we may have suspected about her figure.  I think the early pantyhose had “control tops” or similar construction that attempted to keep things from jiggling, but over time women just accepted that they weren’t fooling anyone and should just let it go, so to speak.  The transition to bare legs was a slow process, or else I was just slow to notice.  I remember one guy reflecting back on the pantyhose days describing watching his wife struggle and squirm into her pantyhose as: “Did you ever try to stuff a marsh mellow into a piggy bank?”

Along with “letting it go,” the social stigma attached to being an overweight woman has diminished a lot.  While weight loss programs and products are more popular than ever, we also see a great deal of acceptance and withholding of judgment towards women who are now what we call “plus size.”  Some of the celebrities, like Adele and Queen Latifah have helped in this regard, along with the sheer number of women who we see out and about who are huge and seemingly unconcerned about it.  Having learned to accept the fat celebrities, it is perhaps easier to accept and not judge the rest of the obese population.  As mentioned elsewhere, the fast food industry has probably contributed to the rising incidence of obesity and type two diabetes (adult onset diabetes, as opposed to type one - genetic inheritance of diabetes).

Installment # 65

At Stanford University and at Cal I think the great majority of professors were on the left side of the political spectrum, ranging of course from moderate to manic.  Some on the far left seemed to pride themselves on being part of the “lunatic fringe.” At any rate, thanks to the power of association, and being young and impressionable, I bought into the liberal side of politics.  I remember reading the newspapers and cutting out news articles that I thought provided examples of American imperialism, by which I think I meant examples of where the United States was intervening, strong-arming, intimidating, etc, in order to exploit the labor and natural resources of other countries – being the bully in the playground, if you will.  Interestingly, after 7 years in public accounting, I didn’t think that way anymore. 

I am not going to go into my political thoughts, or how I got to this point.  They are only opinions, not convictions, and political convictions are largely over-reactions to half-truths, in my opinion, anyway.  The interesting idea is how we begin to think like the people we associate with, or in this case listen to.  Both the preacher and the teacher stand before us with more knowledge on the subject at hand than we have, with a planned and often rehearsed presentation, and a conviction borne of passion, or vice versa, a passion borne of conviction.  As I have said, unless you consciously reject and refuse to accept the germ of an idea, it will lodge and fester and eventually bloom forth as belief or a burning desire (like running a marathon).

If I may hazard an example, it has been my observation that Don’s and Audrey’s thinking have changed a lot since moving to Tennessee.  They seem a lot more conservative politically and a lot more church-oriented.  They associate mostly with retired people their age or older.  They live in part of the so-called Bible belt, and it shows.  I am by no means being critical or trying to belittle how they think.  There is nothing wrong with how they think and, of course, they have the right to believe whatever they want.  I don’t necessarily even disagree with them.  My point is just that I see them as an example of the power of association, no more right or wrong than the power that attracted me to marathon racing.

During George W. Bush’s presidency I found myself drifting to the left, politically, even as I saw Don drifting to the right.  It got to the point where we had to stop passing emails onto each other, rather than risk provoking each other.  I actually would have voted for Obama in 2008, I was so dissatisfied with the Republicans under Bush, but I knew that Sandy was sticking with the Republicans (John McCain), and I didn’t want us to cancel out each other’s vote.  I also knew that California was safely in Obama’s hands, so that it didn’t matter how I voted, really.  In the years since 2008 I have been drifting - maybe now running - away from the Democrats under Obama, and appreciating more and more why Don feels the way he does.  I don’t want to get into any more specifics than that. I think I have seen Don and Audrey move hard to the right, due in part to whom they associate with; and I was moving to the left, due to the voices I was listening to.

I would offer one “political” observation.  A free press, “the fourth estate,” is critical to sustaining our democratic system, but that assumes a free press that is reliable and effective; unbiased and untainted; fair and balanced.  The downfall of the press began when TV news programs began competing for viewers by emphasizing form over substance; by focusing on appearance and personality; developing a loyal viewer following.  They try to present important news in an entertaining way and entertaining news as if it is important.  On days when there is little news to report, they present stories as if they were important, and devote as much time and emotion to the important as to the unimportant.  Based on tone and attention, a win by the local high school baseball team seems as important as the overthrow of a government.  Add to this the “need for speed” in getting stories put together and presented.  A Whitehouse correspondent, for example, needs to get a quote or a quip quickly, as he/she competes with other stations to report on the latest developments.  This often results in reporters seeming to record a spokesperson’s talking points and repeating them in prime time as news: the press becoming a tool of the newsmaker, instead of a constraining force. 

Additionally and unfortunately, the word “news” is derived from the word “new.”  It is unfortunate because many important corrections or developments relating to previous headlines are virtually ignored because the subject matter itself in not “new.”  For example, 16 deaths from the swine flu so far this season is news, but whatever happened to the town of 16,000 that was wiped out by that hurricane last month?  We also know that the authorities have a legitimate need to engage in “disinformation,” or deliberate leaking of false information in their attempts to catch bad guys by surprise.  So we mustn’t overreact to information that may not be true or complete.  During the height (depth?) of a cynical period for me, I did my best to ignore all the news and proclaimed that, as opposed to being uninformed, I was “not misinformed,” which I thought was the better of the two alternatives.  Now I just take everything with a grain of salt, as they say, and don’t overreact to anything.  It is said that 5% of the people make things happen; 15% watch things happen, and the other 80% have no idea what is going on.  I like to think that I am part of the 15%, but that due to the failure of the press to serve us properly, I probably have no idea what is going on.

A person whose title is “head of school” (no CAPS) at Almaden Country School (not Principal or Superintendant or anything – just head of school) recently wrote an interesting article describing the “current paradigm” in education as centered on standardized testing, with emphasis on memorization and recall and the notion that “there is only one right answer to every problem,” explaining that, “Our content-focused model of learning was popularized during the Industrial Age in America, when it was necessary for great numbers of employees to have command of a standardized body of information so that factories could run efficiently.” 

The five big shifts he recommends in education in American schools are: 1)Transitioning from passive to active learning; 2) Moving from independence to interdependence; 3) Assessing what matters beyond content mastery; 4) Reshaping the role of the teacher; and 5) Development of learning networks.  I especially liked his statement that, in his vision, “The teacher becomes a guide on the side, rather than the sage on the stage.”  The fact that a leader in current public education thinks like this encourages me that the needed changes are on the way.

In elementary school we still need to memorize the multiplication table and grasp several other mathematical concepts in order to use calculators and in order to think quickly and clearly.  And although we have spell check now, we see a lot of grammatically incorrect emails.  Young people must master the fundamentals of language and grammar in order to communicate effectively.  I worked with many, many people during my career and gladly made allowances for people for whom English was not their first or primary language – and in Silicon Valley there are many of those.  But it was always obvious when someone just wasn’t well educated or very smart.  Those folks are in a self-limiting situation as far as their careers are concerned.  With the modern Internet-based tools, there is nowhere to hide if you did not get a solid grounding in elementary and middle school.

Sandy and I listen to young parents lament about how much time they need to spend helping their kids do their homework and prepare for class.  We both agree in our recollections that we did not need to spend much time at all helping our kids with their school work.  As best we can recall, each of them was responsible and motivated enough to do their homework, and intelligent enough to understand it.  Occasionally there would be a question that one of us could help them with, but not often.  I remember the time Bobby had a homework assignment to write a poem, and I volunteered to write one for him.  He was impressed with how relatively easy it was for me, and I was quite proud of myself.  Imagine my dismay when he received a “B” or “C” on it (can’t remember which).  I was sure it was worth an “A”.  I guess I took it personally to some extent, and the kids had a good laugh over it.  I thought I had guarded against making it obvious that Bobby had not written it, but maybe the teacher could tell that it was not Bob’s work.  The teachers do get a good feel for what the kids are capable of in the various academic areas.  Michelle seems to remember a time I wrote something for her, too, that didn’t go over well, but I don’t remember that.

I’m not sure when, but it was after our kids graduated from elementary school, that the emphasis in public education shifted more toward helping kids with their self-images and self-worth.  The theory, I guess, was that children could and would learn more readily if they felt good about themselves…had self-images that helped them believe that they indeed were capable of learning.  I don’t know whether that worked well enough, but in the meantime some kids seemed to have received an “entitlement” attitude, instead of a competence and self-worth attitude.  The “You are worthy” message instilled in a young person is evidently too often received or interpreted as “I am entitled.” A parallel trend that we see questioned is how every child who participates in a sport gets a trophy.  “You are all winners!”  Okay.  My personal favorite is the “Most Improved player” award.  From my experience coaching, it means: “You are still the worst player on the team, but you are better that you were at the beginning of the season!”

In one of my college level accounting classes we did a deep dive into how to process and prepare a paycheck.  There were so many laws and rules and options and calculations that I began to despair.  It could take hours to process just a few checks; the likelihood of making an error was great; and there is nothing more important to the employee than a correct paycheck, on time.  (There is also the idea that it is self-correcting if you underpay someone – he’ll present himself in the payroll office pronto; but if you overpay someone, you may never know, and in fact the error may be perpetuated, depending on the nature of it).  After sweating it out for a few days, the teacher mentioned that there were computerized payroll services.  All you had to do was keep certain master file records updated, input the current activity, and the payroll service would process, prepare and deliver the checks.  I should say that these were rudimentary systems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they were mechanized and saved a lot of time and avoided a lot of mistakes.

When the teacher first revealed to us the existence of payroll services, I became annoyed.  Why did I have to go through all this learning, memorizing and practicing, when the computer was going to do it for me?  Years later as an auditor and accounting manager, it was immeasurably helpful to understand the complexities and the degree of difficulty that goes into maintaining the payroll system, complying with the many state and federal laws (and changes therein), company policies (and changes therein) and paying every employee on an accurate and timely basis each pay day.  Without that understanding it would be impossible to audit the process or to support the process as an accounting manager.  I had a CFO one time say that payroll is simple; that we should just be able to “set it and forget it.”  I knew he had no idea what he was talking about.  (CFOs often do not come up through the accounting ranks, so have no appreciation for the complexities.  Ignorance may be bliss for the CFO, but not for the accountants who report to them.)

Installment # 64

In my naivety I thought that virtually all of the couples I saw attending worship services, Sunday school classes, mid-week bible studies, home bible studies, etc, would just naturally have healthy marriages, good self-images, and just a lot of happiness and contentment in their lives.  When I started to build my multi-level marketing business I saw it as nothing more than a bunch of cooperative, positive-minded people working together for mutual benefit.  What shock and disillusionment I was in for!  Not only did I find all my “believer friends” to be small-minded and petty, given to jealousies and gossip, full of fears and doubts, but their marriages were mostly unhealthy (to be polite); their finances were in disarray, and their homes were an embarrassment to them.  Their lives were essentially out of control.  The wives “wore the pants” in the family, for the most part, and did not show the respect for or commitment to their husbands that I thought I would see.

That was sort of the beginning of the end of my faith.  There was no question that Biblical Christianity was not making a difference in their lives.  They were just as fearful and unhappy as any random cross section of the American population – perhaps more so, because Christianity attracts people who on average have greater needs for belonging and acceptance, direction and authority in their lives.  I was upset when I first heard someone say that Christians are “easily led,” but even while I still was one I had to admit that it was true.  I was told I was being too judgmental about the lack of difference I was seeing in “believers,” or that I was once again being too literal – expecting too much, etc.  The standard comeback is, “Christians are not perfect; they are just saved.”  But that is apples and oranges.  I can see that you are not perfect; I must take your word for it that you are “saved.”  That is a faith-based belief that no one can really argue with, nor would I want to.  Believe whatever you want.  “Live and let live, as I have said. 

It is said that the way a sheep wanders away from the flock is “one blade of grass at a time,” meaning indulging in progressively more questionable activities and “sins” until he is lost.  But really it is the process of increasingly opting out of the constant reinforcement of the message, in the presence of hundreds of other believers, that allows a person to break away. The standard rebuttal would be that wherever two or more believers are gathered in His name, He is there through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and that the bible exhorts us not to “forsake the assembling together” with other believers.  But of course if we each individually are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as we are told, then there should be no important diminution when one believer is by himself.  Also, there is only one place or very, very few places in the bible where we are exhorted not to forsake the assembling together, but that was used repeatedly to get us to come to church whenever the doors were open.  Ironically, bible scholars admonish us to be very wary of something that seems to appear in the bible only once, or very few times. 

I’m pretty sure it is the power of association, the continual reinforcement of the message, and the human desires for belonging and for answers to the great questions of existence, that are operating to keep the flock together, all moving in the same direction.  I heard a less accurate, but more amusing summation of Sunday morning preaching described as, “A mild-mannered man exhorting a group of mild-mannered people to be more mild-mannered.”  That would be how it might have appeared to an uninformed observer. At the other extreme, Mom’s reaction was: “You ‘born agains’: they should lock you up for the first year!”

I’ve read accounts of people who managed to break away from various cults, and I can empathize with how hard it is.  I didn’t have to plan a dangerous physical escape, or risk the well-being of a loved one.  It happened naturally over time for me, but it took a number of years, and I am amazed about how I thought and felt back then, compared to how I think and feel now.  It was quite a journey.  While I point to naivety and a lack of common sense, I believe I was consciously motivated by concern for my children.  Once I started down the path toward “salvation” I became very sensitive to the shocking decline in morals and standards that I was seeing around me, but I think the reason had more to do with trying to protect my children than with me personally.  I thought it was the Holy Spirit working in my life and changing me, but really I suspect it was becoming the father of young teenagers for the first time and realizing the way the world had changed since my childhood.  Probably every generation of parents goes through the same thing.

My parents’ generation was morally outraged when Elvis Presley gyrated his hips on Ed Sullivan’s TV show in the late 1950s.  Compare that to the typical music videos of today!  With access to the Internet via mobile devices, today’s children have ready access to anything and everything that may come to their attention.  And with older siblings and friends, everything comes to their attention.  Among my own grandchildren I’ve noticed a range of readiness levels.  Some just are not interested yet in certain things and do not seek them out, but it is fully available when they are ready.  I can only hope that early and frequent exposure to “adult” material lessens the impact to the extent that young people can adopt a “Ho-hum; what’s new?” attitude.  I’ve never been to a nude beach or a nudist camp, but I understand that after a few exciting minutes, people start to pay little or no attention, as in “Ho-hum; big deal; so what?”

On a positive note, I think today’s young people are learning a lot more at an earlier age than I ever did about what is wrong with objectifying, bullying, sexual harassment and the like. Some of this comes from the school systems; some from the books they read and the movies and TV series’ they watch, where healthy concepts can be taught via stories and the portrayal of realistic, relatable situations.  I’m thinking of teen movies where the “mean girls” and arrogant jocks get their comeuppance, and the nerds and nice people are rewarded in the end.

I might even go so far as to suggest that the PG13 movies and PG14 TV shows are introducing young people to human sexuality in a more effective, beneficial way than either the parents or the school systems or the church can.  Thinking about my own children, they received almost nothing useful from me and not much more from Sandy.  As products of our own upbringing, we did not know how to introduce our children to the subject or the reality of that part of life – the part that they were inexorably being drawn into.  As products of our own generation, we had feelings of shame, perhaps some guilt, certainly some awkwardness and embarrassment.  Meanwhile, the school and church leaders labored under restrictive guidelines, and were from our generation or earlier, with hang-ups and hesitations similar to our own.

As I have watched the older of our grandchildren transition from the age of innocence to the age of knowledge and desire, I have transitioned from an attitude of dismay and regret to one of comfort and optimism.  Sexuality is such a blessing in our lives, and I now watch the young people learn about it, each at their own pace, as and when they are ready.  When Brianna is at our house watching one of her programs, I notice that the stories and the acting portray real life, relatable situations, where young people have to deal with their confusion, their desires, their sense of right and wrong, etc.  I think this is leading to a better, healthier transition than was possible in my day, or even my children’s day.

When our oldest grandchild, Ryan, was moving into the age of knowledge, I remember saying to Michelle, “Well, you can’t keep the tide from coming in.”  Now, just a few years later, I think, “Why would you want to?”  I have avoided using the phrase, “moving into adulthood,” because the generally accepted meaning of “adulthood” is at least 18 years old.  But the age of awareness, desire and loss of innocence (not saying loss of virginity – that’s not what we’re talking about here) begins around age 12.  All I am saying, I guess, is that if the parents and teachers are not very well equipped to help in this area, let the TV shows and movies do it.  It is said that most people learn better by “story” as opposed to lecture.  For example, the biblical Jesus taught in parables more than in speeches – the only speech that comes to mind is the Sermon on the Mount.  For easy reference, some of the parables are called: the Prodigal Son, the Rich Young Ruler, the Good Samaritan, the Widow’s Mite, the House of Many Mansions, etc.

I listed these from memory, but I’m sure you can Google “the parables of Jesus” and get an extensive list.  In fact, hasn’t education changed drastically since the arrival of the Internet age?  If it hasn’t, it should and I dare say it will.  There are a whole lot of names, dates, facts and figures that we do not need to memorize anymore.  When I was in high school and college, the information was in the expensive, hardbound books.  If I sold my text books back to the bookstore, I lost my access to the information they contained.  I either had to keep the books or keep copious notes, or memorize a lot of facts, or admit that I probably would never need that specific information again.  One other alternative in our day and earlier was the complete, expensive, soon outdated set of encyclopedias that nearly every home had.  The purchase of a new set usually came with a promise of annual updates, which came for a couple of years, then stopped arriving.  The sets looked nice if you had an appropriate room and bookshelf to display them on, otherwise they were piled up out of sight somewhere collecting dust. 

I would hope that, thanks to the Internet, education is taking place at a higher, more “big picture” level, at least in high school and college.  The date that a war started, for example, is not as important as why and how it started. What someone said is more important than whether it was Mark Twain or Benjamin Franklin or Winston Churchill who said it.  You can look that up, if you are aware of it.  If we are focusing on memorizing names and dates, we may not take the time to see the bigger picture.  But if we have the bigger picture we can quickly look up the details that we might need.

Brianna recently asked me why the United States feels like it needs to meddle in the affairs of other countries: Why can’t we mind our own business and save a lot of American lives and dollars?  I didn’t do a very good job of responding, though I’m sure she would have gotten bored with the whole conversation and wish she had never asked, if I tried to give her my version of how we got to where we are in international politics.  I think I did praise her for thinking about such matters and having an opinion based on what she has learned so far.  Teenagers have all the answers, as we know, so we should just let them run things (Not!).  She was only 12 at the time, but a very much aware and sensible 12 year old, and that is the kind of critical thinking and “paradigm questioning” that we need.  She can look up the historical details, if she knows enough to wonder.

Her question did remind me that I had heard that the United States’ defense budget is not only the largest among the nations of the world, but in fact exceeds the sum of the defense budgets of the countries with the next 20 largest budgets combined.  Even if that statistic is off a little or is a little outdated, it is no doubt close enough to raise the question in my mind of, not only how did we get to this point, but how do other countries feel about that?  If we are as peace-loving and trust-worthy as we say, why are we spending so much money year after year on national defense?  I know that the answers are many and are complicated, but smaller countries must still fear that we may choose to use some of our might against them, if they do not accept our influence in their affairs. 

They probably think that our system of electing our leaders is so crazy that we may someday elect a monster who militarily leads us down the path of world domination.  I don’t really think that there is even a remote chance of that happening, but the countries who do not understand us and perhaps live in fear of us may not think the chance is so remote.  We must look something like the kid in the play yard who is bigger than everyone else, has a body-builder’s physique, wears tank tops to show it off, but walks around saying, “I don’t want any trouble.”

Installment # 63

My foray into bible-based Christianity occupied and often dominated about 20 years of my life from around 1980 to 2000.  It started when Michelle and Bobby were in elementary school and I heard that the teachers were introducing sex education with no moral context at all.  I thought that was outrageous; then I thought: well, what moral context or values were they receiving at home? None.  If the school was to provide it, what would I want them to teach?  What did I believe?  Not much.  So if I was not equipped, and it was not the place of the public school system to teach morals, who was?  My neighbor told me about Los Gatos Christian Church, which was just inside the border of the Town of Los Gatos, and just a couple of miles from our home.  I went there one Sunday morning to see what kind of Sunday school classes they had for children.

It wasn’t long, of course, before I was faced with my own personal decision to make.  Here is another example of how a logical mind combined with no common sense can lead to unfortunate decision-making.  The plan of salvation, as supported by bible passages and as presented by believable speakers makes a lot of sense.  It is very logical.  Additionally, if you sit among hundreds of believers each week and have a consistent message reinforced over and over, it is very hard not to become convinced.  I would also add that humans seem to have a built-in need to believe something in the spiritual realm.  We see the wonders of the human brain and body, the wonders of nature and the planet we live on, the immensity and precision of the universe, and we cannot help wondering how it all came about and maybe why it all came about and, of course, what happens after we die.

Bible-based Christians believe that the bible, which they call “The Word of God,” is God’s complete, inerrant message to us.  Nothing should be added to it, or removed from it.  If you insist on picking and choosing which parts you are going to believe and not believe, then you will stay lost and confused.  That of course rules out every other religion or system of thought.  Any group that has a different opinion on anything non-trivial is by definition wrong (and maybe dangerous and probably unsaved).  To put things in perspective, at the present time (per the Internet), the most popular religion among the world’s 7+ billion people is still Christianity at 2.1 billion people, followed by Islam at 1.5 billion.  The third biggest category, at 1.1 billion, is “nothing,” including atheism, and the fourth is Hinduism at 900 million.  So 5 billion people are lost right off the bat, and then there is probably a goodly number within the 2.1 billion who are only nominal Christians.  Each denomination or sect disagrees with the others on some minor or even major issues, including whether or not they are really “saved,” whether you can “lose your salvation,” whether you are predestined to go to heaven, and the role of good works in qualifying for heaven, to name a few.

It was amusing, if not amazing, to note the lengths we had to go to in order for every sentence in the bible be true.  There is a place in the New Testament, for example, where Jesus admonishes his disciples with: “Oh ye of little faith.  If you had but faith the size of a mustard seed (which is very small), you could say to this mountain, ‘be gone and cast into the sea’, and the mountain would be cast into the sea.”  We had all manner of twisted logic as to how that and many similar statements could be literally true.  There was a whole line of reasoning as to how and why Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding feast and how, despite the clear context of the story, it was non-alcoholic wine.  I guess the bottom line is that people will always find a way to believe what they want to believe badly enough.

I heard a guy on Christian radio discussing “the cults” say that he would allow as how the Catholic Church is a true church with a lot of error in it, while the major cults (Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) are false churches with a lot of truth in them.  I thought of this when reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.  Referring to something he had just stated about the Quakers of his day, he said, “This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, though in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them.”

We had a biblical explanation for everything, and we spoke them with straight faces.  If something good happened to someone we agreed with, we said, “See?  Doesn’t the bible tell us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him?”    If something bad happened to someone we agreed with, we said, “Well, the bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”  If one of our leaders was caught in a scandal (happens a lot), we shook our heads sadly and reminded ourselves that leaders are held to a higher standard than the rest of us, and that the devil especially targets and attacks the leaders.  If something good happened to someone we disagreed with, we would say with David (in the Psalms), “How long, oh Lord, must the heathen flourish,” or words to that affect.  If something bad happened to someone we disagreed with we would nod knowingly and say, “See?  The bible says, ‘be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.’  They won’t get away with it forever.”

We accepted seemingly contradictory information and situations with a shrug and a “Well, we cannot expect our finite minds to understand the nature of God – why he does what he does, why he allows certain things to happen; how he can condemn all those other billions of people (whom the bible says He loves) to eternity in Hell, etc.” And yet we were absolutely convinced that we understood God’s plan of salvation.  Another source of contradiction was how some practices were considered applicable to modern times, and some were thought to be relevant only in biblical times.  In the New Testament church, the women had to keep their heads covered, and were not allowed to preach.  At Los Gatos Christian Church, the women were of course not expected to keep their heads covered, but they were definitely not permitted to preach.  We got around this somewhat by saying that they were only teaching, not preaching.  What a joke!  Also, if a woman felt called to preach, she was considered to be out of “right relationship” with God.  She shouldn’t even want to preach.

Then there is the terminology: Anything you did to help out around the church was your “ministry.”  If a minister was offered a position on the staff, he was “called.”  Almost anyone who served in almost any capacity was included in the “leadership” of the church.  I’m not saying there was anything contradictory or hypocritical about the terminology, but it tended to lock people in and make them feel important, which was especially compelling to people who did not get a feeling of importance or validation at work or at home.  Of course, the military has its own terminology; so does the accounting profession, for that matter.  When I was stationed in Germany, a soldier who lived off post and had his own car had a POV (privately-owned vehicle).  It was never referred to as a car; always as a POV.  I hear reference to “government-speak.”  Apparently they have their own language, too.  Again, there is that sense of belonging – of being “in the know,” of fitting in.

It really is amazing how we could say that we and only we had the true Truth, yet of course could not fathom the mind of God.  The other argument takes the form: “That’s why it is called faith.  When you make that leap of faith, God then starts revealing more of his truths to you.  It is like a veil is lifted from your eyes.”  Good luck trying to reason with anyone who has made that “leap of faith.”  He will steadfastly tell you that he has had an experience that you haven’t had, but if and when you do, then you will understand.  One line of reasoning about faith is that we take many things on faith that we cannot see.  When you eat at a restaurant, you cannot see what is going on in the kitchen.  You trust them to use proper standards of hygiene, food fit for human consumption, and so forth.  You have faith in them!  Driving a car: when the light is green, you proceed through the intersection knowing that the cross traffic has a red light.  But of course we grow up riding in cars and eating what people give us.  By the time we are old enough to think about it, we already know through experience that we need not worry about certain things.  They have never happened.

Another interesting line of reasoning is that in order to recognize something as wrong or evil, we need to have a concept of what is good or true.  Where would a human get the concepts of goodness and truth, if not from his Creator?  Well, that may be a good argument in favor of the supernatural as the origin of things, but it doesn’t follow that we can know much for certain about the supernatural.  We do not need to be shown a physical example of a perfect circle in order to have a mental concept of one, but where did that mental concept come from?  Does that have anything to do with faith? Who knows? We understand the theory of displacement whereby if we place a heavy object into a small body of water, the level of the water rise perceptibly.  Based on that, we also know that if I stick my finger in the ocean, the level of the ocean will rise, but it is so infinitesimal that we would never see it.  We can’t see it, but we believe it.  Is that faith?  Well, it is not observation, but it is a mental extension from the seen to the unseen.  Consider the concept of infinity.  We cannot really picture it in our minds, and our words are inadequate, e.g. “goes on forever,” “never ends,” etc.  Yet I think we understand the concept.  For me, this just speaks of how incredible our minds are; not the origin thereof.

As a comical aside, someone has pointed out that those on the “religious right” nearly all believe that abortion is the taking of a human life, and they believe in the death penalty (capital punishment).  So if a woman is guilty of having an abortion, should she receive the death penalty?  Just poking fun…let it go.

So-called faith comes from associating on a frequent and regular basis with people who all believe the same thing and hear the same message repeated and reinforced over and over again.  It is not unlike the seed of an idea I spoke of in connection with running the marathon or running to the top of Mt. Umunhum: Unless the idea is rejected outright, it will fester in the back of the mind and grow until you act upon it.  Making it even more compelling, in my view, is that humans almost universally have this great need for answers to the great questions of existence: Why am I here?  Where did the universe come from?  What happens when I die?  In terms of the universe, there are really only two schools of thought: the natural and the supernatural, which can also be called random chance versus intelligent design.  There are many compelling arguments for and against both theories, and both theories seem highly unlikely.  To be adamantly confident about either takes a leap of faith, in my opinion.  If I had to choose, I guess I would come down on the supernatural side, but certainly not adamantly.

The origin of man follows right on the heels of the origin of the universe, in terms of the great unanswerable questions that have intrigued humans since recorded time, and probably before.  The great divide here is creation versus evolution, although some have tried to have it both ways by suggesting that a divine being created man, but evolution is how she did it.  (I am just playing around here by saying “she.”  The term “he” is ordinarily accepted in context to be gender-neutral, the way “man” and “mankind” are generally taken as universal, not male or female.  Not so with “she.” “She” always refers to the female of the species.)  Ironically, nearly everyone who talks about God uses “He,” but would acknowledge that in really God is spirit and neither male nor female.  At any rate, if you come down on the supernatural side in regards to the origin of the universe, you probably come down on the creation side when it comes to man.  And “random chance” goes better with evolution of species.  As with the question of the universe, both theories seem preposterous to me, but again, if I had to choose I would come down on the supernatural/creation side.

Many theologians would shout, “But that’s the whole point…you do have to choose!” (You can’t say “Who knows? And who cares?”). But that is because of the third question, “What happens when I die?”  Each religious group or sect has their own elaborate belief system as to the nature of the Creator and what happens in the hereafter.  With, in many cases, hundreds or thousands of years to develop and refine their research, reasoning and messages, each system of thought has a compelling ring to it.  When we add the idea that most people need certainty over ambiguity, and belonging over isolation, it should come as no surprise that they gravitate to the systems of thought that they come in closest contact with, and to the people who seem to have that certainty and community that they need.

Given the great gulf between man and the next brightest animal, in terms of mental abilities, if nothing else, it is hard not to suspect that something supernatural is going on.  But suspecting that something supernatural is going on is a far cry from believing that you have found the group that has it virtually all figured out.  How arrogant and condescending to think that your group is right and all the other groups are wrong to the extent that they don’t agree with you.  I had a sincere young practicing Jew tell me that as far as he understood, the only difference between man and the animal kingdom is that man has self-awareness, and animals do not.  Really?  Wow!  I confess I do not know how the mind of the next most intelligent animal works or about its emotional range or moral code, but to think that self-awareness is the only difference seems ludicrous.  For that matter, I suspect that some of the higher-level animals do have a degree of self-awareness.

If humans were created through some supernatural process, I wonder about the existence of an immortal soul.  I mean, why create something so special – man - only to let him cease to exist at the end of his life span?  And if souls are immortal, where do they hang out?  Where did my soul come from?  Where will it go when I die?  Who will get it next? Does the soul create the essence of personality?  Does it define our individuality?  Speculation can be interesting but, again, to think that you or your group has all the answers is ridiculous.  Allowing for the possibility of the supernatural also opens the door to speculation, theory and belief in all manner of increasingly bizarre and unlikely follow-on ideas that are also possible.  “Evil supernaturalism,” for example, leads to speculation about hell, the devil, spiritual warfare between the forces of good and the forces of evil, etc. 

It also opens the door to accepting the idea that if I just have enough faith, anything is possible.  One example is the “name it and claim it” belief: If the believer is right with God in all respects, he should be able to place his hand on an expensive car, for example, and claim that God is going to give one of those to him; and if he believes it sufficiently, he will receive it.  I think people accept the “random chance/evolution” theory because the alternative opens the door to way more questions and possibilities than they are willing to deal with.  Again, both theories are highly unlikely, but one must be true: either natural or supernatural.  My point is that you can choose the supernatural explanation without needing or expecting that you will need to choose among the various theological speculations.  You just have to be willing to accept “I don’t know, and neither do you!”