Congraduations

Dear Graduates (and anyone else listening in),

Congratulations! We rejoice with you on this milestone in your lives. We know your parents are proud of you, and glad to see you growing into responsible adults.

If you are anything like I was a few years ago, you probably have lots of emotion surrounding this time. You are filled with excitement and anticipation of what is going to happen next, but perhaps a momentary sadness for the child you remember being, a child with dreams and plans and things that seemed so important at the time, although they have been forgotten long ago. And you stand face to face with the only constant in this polynomial of life: change.

For most of you, change will take the form of college. Many people will tell you to enjoy these four years, because they will be the best years of your life. To me, that sounds like an awfully early highlight, so instead I say, enjoy them, because they are now.

College is an amazing privilege. And it, like most of the rest of life, is what you make of it. If you are really desiring to learn and grow, you will be able to, even if what you are learning is not what you expected. And you can learn these things if you're not going to college, too.

You might learn that there are people in the world who are smarter and more talented and nicer than you. It's a hard lesson, but blessed are you if you learn it early. It will make the rest of life a lot simpler.

You might learn that you don't know as much as you think you know. The more education you have, the more you will become aware of your own ignorance, and the fact that you could spend the rest of your life studying important people and ideas and never know enough. This may be depressing, but it is useful, and can provide incentive for a habit of learning. "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire," said W.B. Yeats. Memorizing and regurgitating information for tests is not education. Thinking is education. Arguing sometimes is. Asking stupid questions is a big part.

You might learn that the people you think know things aren't always right. You will hopefully be challenged to think for yourself, and even if you're not, do it anyway. Ask yourself if what you are being told lines up with what you can see of truth.

Truth is not relative. But our understanding of it is, and that goes for your professors too. Unless they claim to have divine revelation (and if anyone does, he might have some problems), professors are making assumptions and looking at information based on their primary beliefs (see Kant's theory of knowledge-- and if you understand it, please explain it to me). Some of these primary beliefs may be skewed, thus skewing their interpretation of the evidence before their eyes.

You might learn that knowledge isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools." Some of the most brilliant men alive have narrowed themselves because they will only believe something if it is observable and repeatable. Materialism limits thinking. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it."

A pursuit of knowledge as the highest good can lead to confused and disorienting circles. J. Budziszewski wrote of his thoughts when he was a nihilist, "I concluded that reality itself was incoherent, and that I was pretty clever to have figured this out—even more so, because in an incoherent world, figuring didn’t make sense either.” Knowledge for it's own sake is futile. It must be in pursuit of something-- or maybe Someone-- else. Knowledge can never explain the "why?" of life.

So don't take anyone's word for it (including mine). Have the courage to find out for yourself.
Happy Graduation to you all! But even more so, Happy Beginning.

what is spring? part 1

"The dogwood blossom," she said, "is a reminder of the cross, with dark brown and red stains, which are the blood of Jesus."

Why I'm not writing about my mother

Trying to write about my mother is hard. Very hard. It's too close, too immense, too real. My palette of words dries up. It's like trying to capture the splendor of the Grand Canyon standing down inside it, when all you can squeeze in are some rocks and maybe a wildflower or two. Yes, they make up part of it; but the parts are not equal to the whole.

Or maybe it's like trying to take a snapshot of a prairie sunrise, when the world is clean and the sky is big and the sun is soaking up shadows with a whole day's worth of light and the clouds are colors we can never come up with names to describe that look like glimpses into heaven. You hear the "click," and wait anxiously to see the results, sure that this will win some kind of photography award, and when you see it, you say "That is not it at all. That is not what it meant at all."

I could give you reasons I love my mother. But they might sound like bragging. And what child doesn't think her mother is the prettiest, smartest, nicest, and generally best? I can't help it that mine really is.

I think what it comes down to is, as a character said in a book my mother would know, "Mainly, I love you for existing." I love her because she is the mostest, realest, bestest her there could be. She has done many things deserving of love, but being is the real reason I love her.

Maybe I can write about mothers in general. I think their importance and influence has been understood much better at some points in history than it is now. There was a time when people said that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

But I think people are afraid to say that now. Little girls have much more freedom to pursue careers and activities, and are encouraged to dream big. Freedom is wonderful-- I have always wanted to be a writer when I grow up, and love being able to chase that dream. But at the same time, I think a (perhaps unintentional) stigma is attached to being "just a mom." Being "just a mom" is big enough and real enough and enough to be a height to which any woman can fearfully aspire.

Women (and girls) are told that they shouldn't have to sacrifice their careers and their happiness for their children. But the essence of motherhood, just like the essence of any love, is sacrifice.

I have been very blessed through the pictures of motherhood that I have seen growing up. Not just in my own mother, although she is the one I know the most through experience. I also have a wonderful picture in my grandmother, and in other mothers I have observed, who I can appreciate even more now that some of my friends are mothers.

But I believe some of the most important people that we will never know about are the mothers who shaped the way their children thought, and instilled in them thoughts that mattered. And their children listened because they had seen their mothers living what they believed through their love and sacrifice.

As I grew older, I came to understand that my mother didn't wash all those dishes and laundry and cook meals and get up in the middle of the night when we couldn't sleep just because she loved doing those things so much. Nor was it because she was forced to by some law of nature that I took for granted, which made her be there whenever I needed her. But she loved us, and so she did those things even if she didn't like them.

This Mother's Day, let's each remember the first influence on our lives, who may be someone other than a birth mother, but who lived that position by choice. And let us tell them "thank you," and "I love you," even if that will never come close to expressing what we really want to say.

There is a lot more I could say if I were writing about my mother. But I'm not, so I can only say that I still want to be just like her when I grow up.

Don't talk to me....until I've had my coffee

I admit it: I have a drinking problem. I imbibe far more of the brew known commonly as "joe," "liquid sleep," or "coffee" than I probably should.

Both my parents drink coffee. I remember at a young age carrying my dad's cup to him and being rewarded with a sip. So began a life-long love affair.

My dad told me I couldn't drink coffee, because it would stunt my growth. I stayed away from it until I was about 16 on that principle, and then decided I wasn't going to grow much more anyway. Of course, it could be true: if I had consumed coffee before I was 12 I might not have reached my full five feet and two inches.

I was not really supposed to drink coffee until I was 18. The problem with this was that I started working at the donut shop when I was 15-- early mornings, the smell of donuts, and as much coffee as I could drink. All this added up to an unofficial cup every once in awhile.
But my dad had told me I didn't really like the coffee, just the cream and sugar in it. So when I did start drinking, I took it straight black, since I am a good-natured person who would never try to prove something... or not.

My coffee problem only grew when I went to college. The biggest problem with it was that the dining hall coffee was almost undrinkable. You know how the south had to use substitutes during the Civil War? Well, I think some places in Virginia never went back to the real stuff. This "coffee" had the deep, rich vibrancy of tar. But, as one of my classmates pointed out, the coffee improved with desperation.

If a person added a packet of hot cocoa mix and 3-6 flavored creamers, and then held her breath and gulped, it would go down and keep her awake. And if she didn't have time for a cup of...that, a serving of chocolate-covered espresso beans was also very effective. How big is a serving, anyway?

I had a roommate who was rather sensitive on the issue of coffee. I'm not sure why, but she decided to make it her mission in life to rid the earth of it. She (fruitlessly) spent four years of her life trying to save me from the vile black brew. Her ceremonial speech in rhetoric blamed it for the evils that plague mankind, and used me as an example of what it can do to a person.
Of course, I spent four years (of which I have not yet seen fruit) trying to convince her that coffee was really wonderful, and she really didn't want me to stop drinking it.

I did try to give it up recently. I had decided it was not good for me to be dependent on any material or liquid thing for happiness. And I had noticed that I have these funny things called mood swings that I have to be careful about displaying around the general public so they don't get worried. I also have to be careful about displaying them around my family, because they don't get worried, whatever else they may get.

Anyway, I had been cutting back on the amount of coffee I consumed, and decided I could go without it for a whole day, and I did.

But I took up coffee drinking again the next day, by popular demand of those who had to be around me.

I have often wondered who was the first person to look at a coffee bean and say, "I think I'll grind that up and boil it and drink whatever comes out." Someone told me recently it was a priest who noticed that a flock of goats were friskier after chewing the berry and decided it might help him to stay alert for worship. That sounds like a good idea.

I think I heard somewhere that drinking coffee can help prevent diabetes. That has the ring of truth to it, if you ask me. I know it is America's top source of antioxidants (isn't it?), which are something that everyone needs, although I'm not entirely sure what they do. Chocolate, I hear, also has antioxidants in it. What a coincidence that they go so well together!

Who said that we should practice "moderation in everything?" Maybe it was me. But even if it wasn't, I think it's a good idea, whether it's drinking coffee or working or sleeping. Balance is something I should continue to seek.

And in the meantime, maybe I'll put on another pot.

We Know We Belong to the Land

We celebrated my grandfather's birthday this past week. I'm not going to say how old he is, but I will say that he remembers walking over fences on dirt blown up as high as the posts. That's a lot of years and a lot of stories.

I like sitting around (with a cup of coffee, of course) listening to people remember an earlier time. I know compared to some places our area hasn't changed drastically from 80 or 100 years ago, but there are still a lot of things we young stupid people don't know about the way things used to work.

This really struck me last year when I started to try to write some historical fiction based on the life of my great-grandmother, who came to Oklahoma Territory to teach school. Sounds easy enough, right? After all, it was only three generations back, and I knew a little bit of family history.

As I got into it, though, I realized how woefully ignorant I am of the details of everyday life a hundred years ago, not to mention the details of my family's history. And some things are beyond the reach of even Google.

I came to understand what a thoroughly modern mindset I have when I sent my heroine--my great-grandmother-- out across the plains in a wagon looking for someone's house. I was a little concerned about her safety, but thought I was forgetting something--then I realized I had been feeling in the back of my mind that she could take a cell phone with her. You can all laugh at my stupidity now. What did people do before cell phones, anyway?

In our modern and mobile society, we don't always know a lot about our roots, or even feel like we have any. People transition from New York to California to Texas, and end up accentless and heritageless, not really sure where they are "from." Which is too bad, because a people who don't know where they came from more easily forget where they are going, or why they are here.

The story of the Trojan War is one of the greatest legends around, immortalized by Homer in the Illiad and the Odyssey. Did you ever think about what kept those men fighting for 10 years? One of my professors suggested that Troy was possible because of Ithaca (Odysseus' home). These men fought away from home for 10 long and difficult years because they had a home they came from that they wanted to protect.

Why did the American colonists, who were so proud to be British citizens, rebel? Why did Robert E. Lee resign from the United States Army to fight against it? Why could the men of World Wars I and II keep fighting in those horrible bloody trenches?

Because a man's first loyalty is to the ground on which he and his fathers were born.

Some of my foreign (California or Pennsylvania) friends used to laugh at the way I would brighten up at an "Oklahoma" license plate or flag or tell them what our state meal was (yes, we have a state meal) or belt out our state song during my exile in Virginia.

They could never see what made me homesick in pictures of what looked to them like a flat barren land. They could never understand why I cried for red dirt and open plains. They could never see the romance and excitement in the loneliness, or in a 1950 Dodge wheat truck that smelled like grease and dirt.

Because that is my heritage, and not theirs.

Most of my generation doesn't know their past. They can know facts and figures about it, but that does not compare with knowing the people who fought to make it, and the land that was a part of them. I wonder if that's why we don't have the power to fight a drawn-out war-- we are not familiar with the reason.

So please, older generations, pass on your stories. We need them. Write them down, tell them to the babies on your knees.

Younger folks: ask questions and listen to the answers. Those in the past were real live people with real problems and worries and loves. Think about their answers. They might tell you more than about them--they might tell you about you.

Confident Waiting

From someone else, whose blog I hope you read more often than mine. If you don't always get a chance to read it, read this post. Whether you are waiting to graduate or waiting to be accepted or waiting for a job or waiting for a calling or waiting for a spouse or waiting for a weekend or waiting for you know not what or why, remember the One on whom you are ultimately waiting.

http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/2007/03/waiting-in-confidence.html

Happy Second First Day of Spring

Why has spring changed dates?

Happy First Day of Spring

My Irish Heritage

My father, he was Orange,1
And my mother, she was a Green.2


Notes:
1. Orange, a reddish-yellow color. Burnt orange (all orange should be burnt) is the color of the Longhorns, the mascot of the University of Texas.

2. Green, mother's maiden name.

A thought

If I were a flower, I should like to be
A crocus, springing wildly
Where no one planted or expected me.

Beware the Ides of March!

No, not the idle of March (although you might beware March idleness, also known as spring fever). Nor are the eyes of March upon you. "Beware the Ides of March," a soothsayer warned Julius Caesar, or so Shakespeare tells us, and who among us dares to question Shakespeare? We probably shouldn't question his soothsayers either, as it turns out.

The Ides are not some furry little hooded creature from Star Wars, much as that may disappoint some. They are simply one of three times in a month used for dating by the Roman
calendar.

If you really want to know: the Romans marked time within the month from 3 dates: the Calends (yes, as in calendar), the Nones, and the Ides. The Calends were easy: the first of the month. The Nones fell on the 7th in March, May, July and October, and on the 5th at all other times. The Ides fell on the 15th in the four aforementioned months, and on the 13th in the others. To make things worse... alright, I won't tell you that they counted backwards from these dates. I knew you didn't want to know.

All that to say: the Ides of March means plain, simple March 15th, although it came to be something like the equivalent of a "9-11" for the Romans.

Caesar did not heed the soothsayer's warning (or at least not adequately), and was indeed killed in the Senate on the Ides of March, 44 b.c. This led to immediate civil wars in Rome, and some say was part of the reason for the fall of Rome. Since Caesar would have, so far as we can tell, probably managed to die at some point even if he hadn't been murdered, Rome seems to have been without hope.

Caesar's murderers were members of the Roman senate, and friends, "all honorable men" who feared that he was becoming too powerful, leaving behind the equality of the Roman republic. Consequently, they disposed of him. The most famous of these conspirators was Marcus Junius Brutus, who et tued. He was a distant cousin of Caesar's and a particular favorite with the dictator, named as one of his testamentary heirs.

It's not necessarily clear who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in the conflict. Like in other historical and current events, they didn't do us the favor of wearing white hats and black hats so we could set it down and be done with it.

Caesar, from all we can tell, was an ambitious man. He was an authoritative ruler, and even though he did refuse a crown and title of king, he didn't have any problem with being "dictator for life." Like most political leaders who are human, he probably was a mixture of good and bad elements.

Ditto (from the Latin, "dicto," "what was already spoken") for his murderers. Brutus especially in Shakespeare is from the first scene to the last an honorable, noble man-- but he also gave "the most unkindest cut of all" to the man who thought so highly of him and had pardoned him.
So it leaves unsettled the question of the assassins' justification. Were they right in taking the law into their own hands to dispose of a bloody tyrant? Was Brutus truly killing a man he loved because he loved Rome more?

Or were they themselves simply bloody murderers, imposing their own will just as tyrannically as they accused Caesar of doing? Was Brutus the most ungrateful of men? People through history have taken different sides, but we do know that Brutus did not become a heroic figure for the ages.

Whatever you may believe, The Ides and their disastrous results are a reminder to us to be very careful about trying to justify rebellion, and a lesson to all in authority not to abuse it. And we should all remember to beware of ambition, for "by that sin fell the angels."

We should also probably beware of men with lean and hungry looks who read too much, and friends with daggers in their smiles and hands. And if you see furry little hooded creatures running around, you might beware of them too.

From last week, actually

Because the 8th would have been his 25th birthday.

Bringer of Light

I wish I could remember his face. In my few hazy memories I can never quite make it out. He is always there, but when I try to see his face it fades into a blur of sunshine and shadow.

His name meant “Light-bringer,” and that is how he appears in my remembrance: a source of light so bright I can’t look directly at it, but which leaves a shadow when it is gone.

Occasionally, I see a flash of a look in a younger brother’s eyes I recognize as his, and hold my breath.

Aaron was born in Baton Rouge, La., but anyone could tell he belonged in the wheat fields of Oklahoma. My parents moved there when Aaron was a year and a half to take care of my grandmother. Aaron and Maestro, the Schitzu cocklebur collector, delighted in the wide open spaces and fresh air after the confinement of the city.

Mama and Daddy called him their “farmer boy”: nothing stood between him and helping out with the men’s work in the garden or field. He fit right in with all the outdoor critters in summer; his sunny grin and eyes sparking blue lit up my world.

In my first baby picture, he is holding me. I am a squalling red ball wrapped in a blanket, but he doesn’t seem to mind, gazing down with wonder and favor on his new charge.

His presence was a constant reassurance I took for eternally granted. I didn’t worry about anything, because I knew Aaron was there. He was my protector: when a mean big boy of four tried to pass me in line for the bumper boats, Aaron stopped him. No one cut in front of his sister.

He frequently carried me away to safety on the back of his bay rocking horse, his velvety green sombrero clashing with red and white striped jammies.

Once I tagged along with him and a friend named Andy to the creek half a mile away, where we threw in rocks and watched them splash and ripple into rings. He was six, and I was three, and our mother was proud that he was old enough to take care of me.

Despite his relative maturity, Aaron was still a child. For my third birthday, Dad set up an early camcorder on a tripod in the kitchen and positioned me in front of it for an “interview.”

I shyly avoided his questions, refusing to talk or sing my “birthday song,” until Aaron came through the door. Without turning his smile from the camera, he scooted me over on my chair and sat down.

“Am I on TV?” he asked through his teeth, careful not to break his smile.

“Yes,” Dad said, and Aaron started chattering like one of our hens. Our father asked him if he wanted everyone who saw him on TV to think he was silly.

He shrugged. “Yeah,” he laughed.

I sat up. “When I’m on TV, I’m gonna be siwwy.”

Aaron put his arm around me, and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Be silly! You’re on the tape!” I immediately began producing zooming noises while Aaron “she-bop-bopped” beside me.

He bought me a gift that year too, and was almost as excited as I was — he tried to help me open it. It was a pink jewelry box with a cat on the top that looked like Mittens.

He showed me how the drawer opened so I could put in my new hairbows. He was very proud of his taste, and kept asking, “Do you like your present, Hannah? Hannah, do you like your present?”

Every night at eight o’clock our mother would read from Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, and tell us a story about when she was little. Then she let us each choose one lullaby, and we would lie in bunk beds in footie pajamas listening to her sing until we fell asleep on pillowslips he had fingerpainted. Music at night still reminds me of the comfort of having him near, and the lack after he was gone.

His favorite hymn was “Trust and Obey.” My mother cried later when we sang it. I whispered, “Aaron?” because I wanted to cry too. She nodded, surprised I understood.
I was only three when he died. His friend Andy prayed for me daily, because I had lost my best friend. God must have answered his prayers, because I don’t remember hurting. I missed him, but I knew Aaron was with Jesus, where he had always wanted to be. What could possibly be more wonderful?

For those who...can't understand

We told someone to use his bean, but discovered that he had lentil health problems.

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.