This Week's Column

How much is a human life worth? How many people can we blame for the bad things that happen in an evil world? And how much money can we make in the process?

America has become a nation worshipping money as the highest good-- as long as it's our own money. If a doctor doesn't catch the fact that someone has a disease, or we set hot coffee between our legs and spill it, "sue!" we cry. Surely money will make everything better.

I've got news for anyone who believes that money can cure pain. It can't. It's easy, it's romantic to see courts as Robin Hood, taking from the rich Big Bad Wolf Business to give to poor grandma. But it's too easy.

Pain is always the result of 1) things we do to ourselves; 2) things other people do to us; or 3) things that happen in a fallen world that are nobody's fault. (Nobody sure gets us in a lot of trouble. Maybe somebody should sue him.) The problem is that we keep trying to squeeze numbers 1 and 3 into number 2, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a bank robber suing his mother for failing to bring him up properly. On "The Incredibles" a man sues Mr. Incredible (the superhero, in case you don't know) for saving his life. "I didn't want to be saved!" he says. It's a joke, but it's so close to the truth that it almost ceases to be funny.

It's not much of a surprise when human beings try to shrug responsibility-- it's been happening for a long time. We don't like to admit that we make mistakes and do evil and stupid things. I know, because I have personal experience with being human-- and plenty of experience doing stupid and evil things. We automatically try to justify, or duck, or generally make things sound better for us. "Well, yes, I hit her," the child says, "but she called me a name!" "Yes, I wrecked the car," the teenager says, "but how was I supposed to know there was another car there?" Litigation is an easy way to deny personal responsibility for doing something stupid.

A legal website said of the infamous McDonald's coffee case that jurors were affected by seeing pictures of the woman's serious injuries. That is emotional evasion-- trying to take advantage of human sympathy to blur the facts. The fact was, she did something stupid by setting hot coffee between her legs. It wasn't McDonald's fault that she did that, nor was it my fault, but McDonalds had to give her money for the misuse of their product, and I have to drink cold coffee now. And when it's cold, it's a lot more bitter. Or at least I am.

There are also some things that just happen in an evil and fallen world. People die of accidents and disease every day. If we look hard enough we can probably find someone to blame or sue, but that won't solve the pain. And it certainly won't help the people we're suing or the people who will have to pay more because of higher insurance rates.

Even when others make mistakes that might hurt us, suing sets a dangerous precedent. How would we like to be treated like that? I'm thankful that people have been kind enough to overlook and forgive many mistakes I have made. It would be pretty ungrateful of me to treat everyone else as though they should be perfect.

The word "victim" has become very popular lately. It comes from the Latin verb vinco, vincere, vici, victum and literally means "someone who has been conquered." That seems like a sad thing to be. Instead of being anxious to be conquered, let's become conquerors-- big enough to overcome the bad things that happen to us, and big enough to overlook-- and forgive-- the mistakes others make. Forgiving may not weigh down the wallet, but it will lighten a load. As Portia said in "The Merchant of Venice": "mercy is above this sceptred sway; it is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute to God himself; and earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice. Therefore... though justice be thy plea, consider this, that, in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy."

The Bear Necessities

This week's real column

Much Ado About Mudding

I found out this weekend that I wasn't born to be a cattle drover. Or a politician, but we knew that already.

It started in the middle of a peaceful Saturday afternoon, when someone happened to glance out the window. What we saw was our neighbor's cattle trailer, evidently bearing the calves of some distraught matres bovinae, who were circling the wagon (or the pickup, rather) and letting their displeasure be known. All might have been well, except that a few of the herd decided not to be concerned. We could see the evidence of this out of the other window, where our neighbor's wife was trying without much benefit to encourage a couple of stubborn cows and a stubborner bull out of our wheat and back to the road. Seeing our neighborly duty, we put on the coats and shoes and headed out to help.

I wondered, as I wandered out into mud staining my blue tennis shoes, what exactly I thought I was going to do to make those monstrous beasts move. I wouldn't have objected to whacking the cows, except that they were standing very close to a bull. I calculated my chances of outrunning an angry bull in thick mud. It didn't take much math to figure out they were a lot slimmer than he was. So I decided my best strategy was not to have to outrun a bull, by not making him mad. I moved around to the other side. "Ahem. I don't suppose you would like to walk back that direction?" I asked politely. He didn't like, and took another step away from the road. So I continued my fierce backwards march.

The cattle continued to munch until the trailer returned. Then they remembered that there was a reason they wanted to be with it and not with me. They trotted off mooing merrily, leaving me ankle deep in the mud.

George Washington, whose 275th birthday we celebrate today, knew some of the problems of corralling. He was, naturally, trying to corral people and not dumb beasts, but I think he may have experienced some of the same frustrations when he saw everyone wandering off in their own directions. Only he had it worse: he had to fear not only the disunity of everyone in the herd wandering off, but the far greater problem of the herd attacking and destroying itself, like a pack of cannibalistic wolves. He feared that the inward struggles would leave the infant nation vulnerable to outside attackers, too. And this is why, when he retired from the presidency in 1796 he stressed a warning: that the United States beware "the baneful effects of the spirit of party" (emphasis mine).

Washington was afraid that some men would, "according to the alternate triumph of different parties...make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests." Why? Because: "however combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer the popular ends, they are likely...to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reigns of government." Sound familiar?
Alexis de Tocqueville, studying American democracy in the 1830s, saw many of the same dangers facing it--the dangers of people being more concerned with their individual gain than with the good of their country. Tocqueville believed that the most important force combating selfish individualism was Americans' "self-interest well-understood"--the understanding that it is better for us as individuals to be a nation bound to each other so tightly by our commonalities that our differences don't make us fall apart.

Today it is easy to lose sight of our common ground. Americans no longer profess a shared belief in the beliefs on which our laws were based, or in morals at all. And we have seen our politicians spend their time and votes trying to curry favor with the masses rather than doing what they know is best for the country (incidentally, the founders were very wary of rule by the masses, which is why we don't have a pure democracy). We have seen them compromise, seen time and money spent on attacking each other; not from a desire to use power for the good of the people, but from the pure and selfish love of power itself. And we have seen a country mire itself in mud.
It's time for us to forget a few things about ourselves and remember a few things about our country. Happy Birthday, Mr. Washington.

"Introduction to Poetry"

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

~Billy Collins, courtesy Worldmagblog

This Week's Column

Speaking in opposition to a bill that would make English Oklahoma's official language, the Cherokee Nation's Principle Chief Chad Smith said that the bill was "branding Oklahoma with the badge of intolerance." Leaving aside the question of whether badges are branded or things branded are badges, I see in the wording of his sentence a thought becoming all too common: the notion that we should tolerate anything-- except intolerance.

First of all, I ought to explain that I am not opposed to languages other than English. I personally believe that learning more than one language is an excellent idea, which we Americans ought to practice more. I also do not think that it is "intolerant" to declare English our official language, since those languages are, indeed, tolerated. Had the bill forbidden the use of a language other than English it would have been intolerant, but that is not the case. It is not this particular bill, however, that I wish to discuss today, but rather the virtue of tolerance.

Calling someone or something "intolerant" has become a strategy of attack rather than a statement of fact. It is a word used with a pointed finger and a slight pause and shudder to allow everyone listening to comprehend the horror we must feel at beholding an intolerant man. But because "intolerance" has become such a loaded term, we have lost sight of why tolerance is a virtue at all.

"The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues...the virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone," wrote G.K. Chesterton in 1905. This is still true, especially of the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is, like other Aristotelian virtues, a virtue of the golden mean. It must remain in balance in order to remain a virtue; it is not a pure good, only a good in balance with other goods, like charity and justice. If it gets out of whack, the vices are waiting to destroy it. This is easier to see with the virtue of courage: too little produces timidity, but too much results in temerity. Only the right amount produces the virtue. What we want is not something that's "too hot" or "too cold," but "just right." It works the same way with tolerance. Too little results in intolerance: heretics being burned at the stake. This is a Bad Thing. But too much results in chaos and anarchy, which is also a Bad Thing. There is a reason the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a "zero tolerance" policy.

A common mistake is to assume that in order to be tolerant, one must be utterly neutral, not making any kind of public commitment to beliefs, especially in the realm of morality. Committing to beliefs is called by ugly names, such as "imposing" them on others. And so we have all come to assume that in order to be a good public servant one must check his personal beliefs at the door. But this is not only undesirable; it is impossible.

"There is no such thing as Neutrality," writes J. Budziszewski. "It is not merely unachievable, like a perfect circle; it is inconceivable, like a square circle. Whether we deem it better to take a stand or be silent, we have offended this god in the very act of deeming."

Tolerance itself implies a lack of neutrality: Webster defines "to tolerate" as "to neither forbid nor prevent." The only things most of us have to restrain ourselves from forbidding or preventing are things we already have an opinion about-- and not a good one. We tolerate something we believe to be evil, points out Budziszewski, for the sake of preventing a greater evil or protecting a good. We tolerate opinions we believe to be wrong in order to protect the higher good of the right to free speech. But we do not tolerate murder; we do not tolerate theft; we do not tolerate some things even when they only harm the person doing them. Why? Because we are not neutral-- we care.

Tolerance cannot be neutral about what is good, since its very purpose is to "guard goods and avert evils," says Budziszewski. We shouldn't try to remove our system of morals, but we can recognize and set aside some of our personal preferences. I will tolerate people wearing pink and red together for the sake of peace, even though I don't like that particular color combination. But I won't have my core beliefs imposed on in the name of tolerance.

Perhaps, instead of assuming tolerance to be the highest good, we should think a little more about love instead. Tolerance can only prevent negative actions: love requires positive action. Love is often harder to accept than tolerance, because it is honest. Love is often harder to give than tolerance, because it is honest. But in the long run, it will help all of us a lot more.

Apostrophes addressed To My Native Tongue

Oh, English, English! Let us whale thee for a wile.

Let us morn thy native speaker's ignorance of other language's (morn).

Let us morn thy native speakers ignorance of there own (morn.)

Let us morn the fall of thy adverbs into jectives, thereby losing there ly and thus becoming real and quick dead.

Behold the heights from witch thou hast fallen! Let us morn thy native speaker's inability too speak there own tongue in a meaningful way, and consequent decline into the bottomless pit of cliche, from witch there is no return, to be never heard from again. Morn, ye peoples! Morn, ye alphabet soup! Morn, yonder son rising in the east!

Let us morn thy native speakers inability to use thy vocabulary. Let us morn the fact that we must weight, too here thine own beautiful words, like "facilitate," from the lips of a foreigner.

Let us morn thy native speakers fear of punctuation and disregard for the laws governing it, the fact that they cannot tell the difference between a colon and semi-colon, accept that they never use the ladder for fear of being wrong, let us bewhale the use of quotation marks for emphasis, the sprinkling of comma's wearever they are not sure or need a breath, and, oh, apostrophe's! You are dying, you are dying, you are all of you dying.

Let us morn thy native speaker's inability to put together a grammatical sentence. Like school superintendent's who say someone is committed "in" something instead of "to" it in written statements. People are only committed "in""to" asylums. Morn, dictionarie's with no one to read thee! Morn, libraries', waistlands with no inhabitants! Morn, linguist's with no subject!

Morn, noon, and night!

This Week's Column

Whether you plan to celebrate Valentine's Day with your sweetheart, or Singles Appreciation Day (SAD) with your cat, or not to celebrate at all, none of us can ignore the fact that February 14th will soon be upon us. Pink and red hearts pop up everywhere, disregarding the ancient Greeks, who believed the seat of the emotions to be less colorful internal organs. And with Valentine's Day, as with all other Great American Holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day) the retail world sees their chance to make a lot of money-- us.

Google tells me there are 15,200,000 matches for "valentine gift." Well, "about" 15,200,000--you can give or take a few (there are, however, no matches for "unique valentine gift," so don't even bother trying for that). One website helpfully tells men that flowers and candy just aren't enough anymore-- women will notice if you don't get them, but you better not stop there. "The important thing," they all say, "is that you give her a gift from your heart, something that will show her how much you care about her. And, by the way, she's going to judge your gift to her by the amount of money you spend on it. Here!" they gleefully announce, "We have the solution: buy her jewellry and clothing and furniture and an island in the Caribbean, and she will know that you love her. Until we come up with something bigger next year." And I see them ranged in store aisles, the poor well-meaning, deluded men, hopelessly looking for a perfect gift for their perfect match.

Retailers have now decided that it's not enough to sell out their women's sections, either: ladies are evidently supposed to be buying their special someone a special something too. This can lead to some difficulty, since we have yet to find the masculine equivalent of flowers and candy. Tool sets and lawnmowers are about as close as we seem able to come, but "roses are red/violets are blue/wrenches are sweet/and so are you" just doesn't have the same ring to it. I'm sure, though, that if you are wanting to please that outdoor, farming kind of man, he would be more than happy to get a "John Deere" letter.

Don't get me wrong-- I like the idea of gifts for Valentine's Day. And gifts for the other 364 days in the year, for that matter. A box of chocolates or a bouquet of roses or wildflowers can instantly brighten the day for most women, and I imagine that the masculine alternative (whatever that may be) could do the same for most men. But the brightening factor is caused not so much by the flowers themselves, lovely though they are, as by the fact that the recipient knows someone wanted to make her happy. Any properly-ordered human being will be much happier with a dollar store gift given from a loving heart than with the Hope Diamond itself, given from a sense of obligation or guilt.

O. Henry tells a story called "The Gift of the Magi," about the gifts of two very poor people who love each other. Della, the wife in the story, wants to find her husband "something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim." She sells her one treasure-- her hair-- in order to buy him The Perfect Gift: and as it turns out, he has sold his only treasure to buy her one, too. In the end it is their sacrifices that are the most precious gifts-- the fact that each of them was willing to give up something very special (even a part of themselves) because they wanted to please the other.
After all, isn't that what love is? Not a warm fuzzy feeling or a pit to be fallen into, but an earnest desire for another person's good. Even placing the other person's interests ahead of one's own. Love is a pouring out of self, a giving-- giving up our selfish desires, giving up our wills, laying down our rights. Laying down life-- sometimes in one heroic act, and sometimes one breath at a time.
Gifts can be a wonderful expression of love and thoughtfulness, but shouldn't be confused with the Real Thing. The Real Thing keeps on giving year-round by taking out the garbage or the dog, or waking up in the middle of the night to rock the baby. Because love isn't about the loved one's worthiness-- it's more about the one doing the loving. And that's the only reason any of us can be loved.

Happy Valentine's Day! And Happy Shopping for Valentine's Day. Please shop responsibly: shop Fairview. And remember, it's the love that counts. But toasters are still not romantic.

God, Thou Art Love

If I forget,
Yet God remembers! If these hands of mine
Cease from their clinging, yet the hands divine
Hold me so firmly that I cannot fall;
And if sometimes I am too tired to call
For Him to help me, then He reads the prayer
Unspoken in my heart, and lifts my care.

I dare not fear, since certainly I know
That I am in God's keeping, shielded so
From all that else would harm, and in the hour
Of stern temptation strengthened by His power;
I tread no path in life to Him unknown;
I lift no burden, bear no pain alone:
My soul a calm, sure hiding-place has found:
The everlasting arms my life surround.

God, Thou art love! I build my faith on that.
I know Thee who has kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt Thy love.

~Robert Browning

updates

Here we are.

New job is mostly fun. I am asking all kinds of impertinent and stupid questions, which forces me to learn a lot. And everyone thinks I'm young and stupid anyway, so I'm not losing anything (probably pleasing them, if the truth be told) when I confirm their opinion. I keep hiding behind my computer when people come in or when the phone rings, but nobody's yelled at me yet. It's not as bad in some senses as letting people at school read things I have written, because I don't care about the news articles as much. But in some ways it's worse, because I keep being afraid someone won't like the way I quoted them, or the information I included, or won't understand my editorial. And this week I had to put in my first correction--someone was only being arraigned instead of standing trial. oops. But so far people have only said nice things--that they can tell I'm educated (unlike some we shall not speak of except to say that they had a vernacular disease).

Mondays I go to the County Commissioners' meetings, where they entertain me with stories of the "good ol' boy" days of county politics, some of the results of which are still around. I find out way too much about people around. I also got some interesting quotes, like "When you get in a knife fight, the man who wins is the one with the gun." There was also some confusion about a man getting a DUI on a bicycle (he didn't).

Monday night was the school board meeting. When they were ready to go into executive session I was trying to quickly ask the superintendent some questions, and get out of the way. When I got outside the door I realized I had left my purse in the room--I had my camera over my shoulder, so hadn't noticed it. They laughed at me, but I did too.

Tuesday night was City Council-- almost as entertaining as County Commissioners. When the issue of potholes came up, the vice-mayor and another councilman said you just had to drive on the wrong side of the road (and the police chief, present, told the new recruit something about selective enforcement). Another council member said he didn't read the minutes to find out about other men's wives...

I feel rather self-counscious going to big important meetings with big important people, and asking them questions and taking their pictures. It's especially bad when I try to make a good impression because someone finds out I was homeschooled and they don't like homeschoolers and I'm feeling rather stupid because it's coffee-or-siesta time and I'm trying to ask intelligent questions and am not wanting to talk to anyone. But everyone is very anxious to be nice to me now that I'm "press," which amuses me sometimes.

There are also some sad things about small towns and people knowing each other for the last hundred years. Thursday I was at the courthouse (where there is a marvelous full-length photograph of our county's first sheriff leaning on his rifle) and a woman came in to bail out a young man, presumably her son. The judge was hanging around, although not officially, and spoke with her for a bit. After he left, the woman asked the clerk "who was that?" to which the clerk responded, "Judge Barefoot" (incidentally, I like the name). "My kids used to go to school with his kids," the woman said. There are many other instances I have seen, but do not wish to relate: people see each other's weaknesses and sins; people see others against whom they have sinned. And have it always before them.

Unrelated: I was recently trying to describe to a five-year-old where Italy is. I said it was very far away, on the other side of the world, across the ocean, not part of Oklahoma or the United States. She looked at me understandingly and asked "Texas?"

HAPPBTH DAY

To my beautifulest, adorablest, Favoritist Sister in the Universe or World.


Even if I am 2 days late. =[ And even if I do have to look up to you now. It's been so much fun being sisters and friends--even if we are too much alike. It's also been fun seeing you grow up into the lovely and sweet woman God wants you to be. And I look forward to many more years of looking up to you.

quote of the day

"Joy is the flag that flies over the castle of our hearts announcing that the King is in residence."

~Walter B. Knight