At Bats and Possessions

I can't multitask.  Can anyone?  I think women can.  Not me.  In fact, I'm trying to stop trying.  It turns out that a lot of the time when I'm tempted to multitask, it comes down to trying to carry on some interpersonal communication with a real person vs. carry on some task with a thing (especially the computer).  Usually the person gets the short end of the stick.  So now, if there's some action that needs my attention while I'm interacting with another person, I apologize for interrupting the interaction, admit that I can't multitask, take care of the action, and then direct my attention once again to the person.  I've found that there's a peace that comes with the confession that I can't multitask.  Maybe it's the peace that comes with speaking the truth.  

Earlier this year, I read a book by former UNC basketball coach Dean Smith, and one of things he was always trying to get his players to do was to focus on "this possession."  "Win this possession."  A basketball player trying to win a particular possession can't be multitasking.  Neither can a guy trying to hit a baseball.  I wonder if that's why I was never very good at hitting a baseball.  Some lessons are learned too late.

In God's providence, page after page

I participated in an exercise with a small group several months ago.  Each of us in the group was given a few minutes to come up with a 6-word philosophy of life.  I don't remember the one I came up with, but as I thought about it later, I came up with one that I've hung onto:  In God's providence, page after page.  


One of my daily struggles is worrying how I'm gonna satisfactorily perform all I need to do.  At work, at least, there's almost always more to do than I have time for.  At the beginning of the day, I look at all the tasks ahead of me and I wonder if I'll be able to do them all.  Moreover, it's a certainty that whatever's on my list at the beginning of the day, there'll be more added to it.  How will I manage?  I hate to admit it, but at times I feel something akin to panic.


Two years ago, in 2009, because it was the 500th anniversary of his birth, I heard and read a lot about John Calvin.  He taught a lot about God's providence, and meditating on God's providence has helped me with my struggle with worry.  Nothing happens outside of God's providence and everything that happens is in some sense ordained by God, including everything that's on my list every day.  It's on my list because he put it there.  He put it there in a particular order and I'm to work on each item in that particular order.  Seriatim.  Start with page one, focus on it, and do it.  Then go to page two.  After that, page three, &c.  If there's an interruption or a surprise, it's there in his providence.  It didn't take him by surprise.  This sounds pretty basic, yet thinking about my day in terms of the providence of God has really made a difference in my attitude.  I wish I could say I'm cured of all worry, but that's not true.  Nevertheless, multiple times a day as I think about what I'm doing, I call to mind the sovereignty and the providence of God, and that's a good thing.    

Witness

Witness is the title of a book by Whittaker Chambers. On a superficial level, it's the story of the Alger Hiss spy case. But primarily, it's the story of Whittaker Chambers' journey into and out of Communism.  This is a largely forgotten chapter in American history and that's unfortunate. The book is long and is tedious when dealing with the formal trial of Alger Hiss. But the part about how Whittaker Chambers became and functioned as a communist spy is riveting. However, I believe the best part of the book is the foreword, which Whittaker Chambers crafts in the form of a letter to his children. This brief essay should be required reading for every American high school student.  Whittaker Chambers wrote that "two faiths were on trial:"  "Communism and Freedom."  The differences between the two faiths ultimately came down to one thing:  God.  According to Chambers, "the Communist vision is the vision of Man without God."  
This struggle still goes on today, and the spirit of Communism lives on in a number of related "faiths."  It lives on, for example, in those who maintain that the individual is of lesser value than the group and that it's moral to sacrifice any number of individuals for the sake of a particular group.  It's not enough, though, to oppose such a vision.  Chambers wrote, "a man is not primarily a witness against something.  That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something.  A witness, in the sense that I am using the word, is a man whose life and faith are so completely one that when the challenge comes to step out and testify for his faith, he does so, disregarding all risks, accepting all consequences."
God grant me the courage to be a witness for Jesus Christ and for his gospel and for the worldview that is Christianity.   

My Help

Henry Lee, Juanita, Evalina, & Edner.  I wanted to record for posterity the names of some of the women who "practically raised" me, according to my mother.  I don't know their last names.  I don't even know if their names are correctly spelled (the above names are phonetically spelled, based on my mother's pronunciation).  These were black women who worked for my mother, taking care of me when I was very young.  Sadly, I don't remember them (I have no memory of anything before kindergarten.  I remember getting a whipping for "getting lost" during a kindergarten class trip to the circus.  I also remember that I wasn't lost; I wandered off to look at the chameleons that were for sale.  I was fascinated by them & wanted to watch them more than whatever else was going on under the big top.  No doubt that unjust whipping scarred me for life.  It wiped out my pre-kindergarten memory & to this day I don't like circuses & I break out in a cold sweat in the presence of old maid schoolmarms).  Anyway, it grieves me that I don't remember these women or the things they taught me.  However, given the culture of the day, I have no doubt that they were relatively strict and openly & unashamedly based whatever rules they had on the Bible.  Consequently, I also have no doubt that I'll see 'em again in glory.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills--
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.

These are the opening two verses of Psalm 121, one of the Songs of Ascents, recited by the Jews as they walked up to Jerusalem for one of the holy days.  As they approached Jerusalem, they looked up at the hills where various "high places" were found.  These were shrines, often to idols, that were unauthorized by God.  The Jews then affirmed that their help comes not from any source other than the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  I also affirm that God alone is my help and that, ultimately, it is he who works through various agents to help me, discipline me, and direct my way.  He worked through Henry Lee, Juanita, Evalina, and Edner.  He will be my help today, and I can trust him to be my help in the future.  He neither slumbers nor sleeps.  Praised be God, and not our strength, for it.    

24thJuly2011 You're the Intervention

I was part of a study that came to an end a few weeks ago.  Some of my colleagues at Mayo are interested in physician burnout and conducted a study that lasted about 8 months.  Physician volunteers were recruited to be part of the study and the volunteers were divided into two groups, the study group and the control group.  I volunteered and was assigned to the study group and so every other week I met over lunch with a group of up to seven other physicians and two facilitators (there were three other such small groups).  For the record, my group included three general internists, a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, a pulmonologist, a rheumatologist, and a hematologist.  The facilitators were both general internists.  At each session the facilitators introduced a topic by asking a particular question or showing a brief video and then discussion would follow.  The discussions were always about some aspect of what could be considered the art of medicine, such as dealing with medical errors, the death of a patient, prejudice, &c.
Almost every time I was encouraged by the comments of my colleagues.  For one thing, I learned first-hand that I wasn't the only one struggling with certain thoughts or experiences.  In addition, my colleagues often spoke of ways they dealt with certain challenges, ways that I could adapt for my own use.
Almost from the first, the time I spent with my colleagues in these sessions was precious to me.  Because of the location of my office, an extra effort on my part was required in order for me to attend the meetings.  I gladly made the extra effort.  The only two times I missed a session was when I was out of town.  Even my nurses noticed some sort of effect on me.  At one point, one of them asked me, "So, you're going to therapy today?"  
Over the years, I've participated in a number of small groups through my church.  I'm sure they were of value, but I don't recall ever looking forward to the meetings as much as I looked forward to these meetings, nor did I consider them as helpful at the time.  A feature of almost every church small group I've attended is that they've been scheduled in the evening, after a busy day.  By virtue of the fact that none of us had anything scheduled after the group, the meetings tended to go beyond the previously-agreed-upon ending time, sometimes quite a bit beyond.  I'm wired in such a way that I don't tolerate small group sessions that go beyond their scheduled ending time.  One of my many faults.  Content was another problem in some of the church small group meetings I've attended:  there wasn't much.
At the last session of the study group, I learned how the physicians in the control group were treated.  Whereas a certain amount of time was carved out of my schedule so I could attend my group session, physicians in the control group were simply given the same amount of time every other week to spend however they wanted.  Someone in my group asked in effect, "So what was the intervention?"  To this one of the facilitators replied, "You were the intervention."
I was struck by that statement and realized that God in his grace & in his providence did a work in me through some of my colleagues, some of whom were not Christians.  It further dawned on me that that's how he works in the world most of the time:  through sinful, flawed, human agents.  On any given day, at any given moment, God in his providence may use even me to "intervene" with another person, or vice versa, to proclaim the gospel, to encourage, to be an agent of reconciliation, &c.
I'm even looking forward to my next church small group.

30thApril2011 What's yours is mine?

Maybe the greatest blot on the record of our founding fathers is their failure to deal appropriately with the issue of slavery.  It's hard to understand how men so brilliant, who wrote so eloquently about how "all men are created equal," could have have been so blind as to institutionalize slavery in the Constitution.  Arguments must have been advanced that pointed out the inconsistency of their words and their actions.  Yet slavery was allowed to continue, likely because it was politically expedient.  A nation needed creating, and the support of influential, slave-holding men was needed.

I expect that Americans come closer to 100% agreement on the issue of slavery than on any other issue.  It's bad.  It's a moral evil.  We shouldn't have done it.

Yet, I believe the vast majority of Americans still endorse slavery, though of a different type.  Most believe and promulgate the idea that somehow or other they are entitled to the fruit of another person's labor, that they have a right to take someone else's property, even at the point of a gun.  Most believe this because they believe and promulgate the idea that it's alright and a moral good to forcibly redistribute wealth.

Examples of how Americans endorse the forcible redistribution of wealth are legion.  The financing of public education is one.  I expect that Americans also come pretty close to 100% agreement that the education of children is a good thing.  Yet many Americans are not willing to pay the cost of their children's education. They believe this education should be "free."  Of course, they would acknowledge that there is a cost to the education of their children; they just think they shouldn't have to pay it, at least not all of it, and usually not even most of it.  "Society" should pay this cost, for all kinds of good reasons.  And yet, in reality, "society" is a sort of fiction.  If society has any resources, it's only because the individuals within it have their own resources, usually acquired as a result of their labor.  Society pays only because the individuals in it are forced to pay, and those individuals who pay may have little or no say as to the kind of education they're financing.  It's possible in today's America that a person may be paying, whether he agrees or not, to teach children as young as kindergarteners that homosexual sex is on a moral par with heterosexual, married sex.  It's also possible he may be paying, whether he agrees or not, to teach students that there is no God, or if there is, he doesn't really matter or isn't any more worthy of study or worship than Buddha, Allah, Gaia, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  If an individual decides he no longer wants to finance a particular educational enterprise because it teaches students ideas that are anathema to him or because it's doing a lousy job educating the students, or for whatever reason, sooner or later, if he persists in the refusal to pay, someone with a gun is gonna visit him.

I believe in the value of education and can provide ample proof of that belief both from my behavior and from my bank statement.  But I don't believe I have the right to go to my neighbor, take some of his property by force, and use it to educate my children.  Being poor doesn't give me that right and neither does being rich.  I don't believe I'd have that right even if everyone else in America agreed with me and voted that it was OK for me to go to my neighbor and take some of his property by force and use it to educate my children and/or anyone else's children.

But that's how wealth redistribution works.  Someone has an idea for a project, a really good, worthwhile project.  It'll only directly benefit a certain group of people, but it's a really worthwhile project.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have the money to pay for it.  Now his neighbor's got money.  In fact, he's got bags full of the stuff just laying around.  But, for whatever reason, his neighbor isn't willing to fork over the cash, and he knows he can't just go take it by force, however much he covets it.  Still, he believes that because his project is so worthwhile, so beneficial, he's somehow more entitled to his neighbor's money than even his neighbor is.  So he goes to St. Paul or Washington and convinces a group of politicians that he's right, so that they'll go to his neighbor and take the money by force.  If it turns out that the neighbor resists, sooner or later someone with a gun will show up.  The neighbor is forced to give up part of the fruit of his labor to pay for someone else's project, whether he agrees with it or not.  It usually turns out that such an action is also politically expedient.  Now the politicians will have some new friends who will vote for them and maybe even donate money to their campaigns.  The neighbor doesn't really matter to the politicians.  After all, he's only one vote.

If someone or some group is entitled to any of the fruit of my labor, to that extent I'm his slave.  I don't care what the motive is.

16thApril2011 How've the ears been?

One day I was seeing a woman in her late 80s.  She was in remarkably good shape and very personable so it was a lot of fun just talking to her.  Unfortunately, her husband was chronically ill and living in a nursing home.  She went to see him every day.


As I started to examine her, I noticed a bracelet she was wearing.  I commented on it and she told me it was a present from her children on the occasion of her 50th wedding anniversary.  I congratulated her and asked her how long she'd been married now.  She replied, "Sixty-three years."  


It's my practice to ask symptom-related questions as I examine someone and shortly after her answer I was ready to examine her ears.  When I asked her, "How've the ears been?" she smiled wistfully & replied, "Oh, they've been wonderful years."

2ndApril2011 April in Minnesota

Another April has begun.  When someone from someplace else where it's warmer in the winter asks me about living in Minnesota, I often comment that April is my least favorite month.  It just seems like it ought to be nicer, greener, warmer, floweryer.  Instead, it's cold, gray, and damp.  The first year I spent in Minnesota it snowed 8 inches on the 30th of April.  I've spent many April Saturdays watching youth soccer games in the cold, rain, & even snow.  Even today, with a beautiful, cloudless sky, there's still a blanket of snow covering most of my back yard.  


And yet, by April winter is, in fact, gone & it is Spring.  Spring is probably beautiful everywhere, but there's something emotionally electrifying about Spring in Minnesota.  It's a thrill to see the first robin (my wife & I have a sort of contest:  which one will be the first to see a robin.  I won this year.  When I called her to tell her that I'd seen a robin on the way to work, she replied that she'd already seen one two days earlier, but since she didn't say anything to me about it, I declared that it didn't count).  And after I see the first robin, they're suddenly all over place.  Then the crocuses start to come up.  Then the tulips.  Then the daffodils.  The willows start to look a little greener.  Each new sign that the world is waking up is encouraging.  And if I'm paying attention, I've got something to be encouraged about every day.  


Moreover, by April we're playing baseball again (if the Twins had opened last night at Target Field they'd've been playing on a wet field in 40 degrees; instead they got creamed inside the dome in Toronto).  By April all the trout streams are open (& I hope to go fishing today).  In April, one starts to see one's neighbors again, and more & more people are out for walks and jogs and even bike rides. 


And so, today, even during my least favorite month, I'm very encouraged and grateful to God for the beauty and order of the world, for the change of the seasons, for the end of another winter, and for plenty to do today.            

30thJanuary2011 Parable vs Narrative

My daughter, Lauren, included the following in a recent e-mail:

I just have a question that my roommate Erin asked and I wasn't really sure how to answer it. Erin was telling me that she was talking to her boyfriend, who goes to the U of M, and he said that since Jesus used Parables in the NT, maybe the Flood was a parable and it never actually happened. And I have never heard anyone say this and so I did not know what to tell her to say except that there is scientific proof from of the Flood (like all the fossils) and that all Scripture is God breathed. But how do you answer that and show that the Flood wasn't just a parable? I know that it wasn't and that the Flood did really happen, but I don't know what to say to people who don't know that. What do you think? Thanks Mom (and Dad). I love you!


Here's my answer.  Firstly, it's a matter of one of the principles of the proper interpretation of Scripture.  The Bible contains different types of literature and this must be borne in mind when trying to interpret it.  For example, much of the Bible is poetry, full of imaginative & figurative language, and figurative language is not meant to be interpreted literally.  When it says in Isaiah 55:12, "For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands," we're not to understand that the mountains and hills somehow broke out into harmonious song or that the trees miraculously acquired hands and starting applauding.  This is figurative language & is meant to be taken figuratively.  Now consider the parable.  A parable is a literary device characterized by a fictional story that is used to teach (usually) one particular lesson and that's how we should interpret it.  Another type of Biblical literature is the historical narrative, in which the author describes events that actually happened.  The story of the flood is told in this way, along with the rest of Genesis, and at least the author meant it to be understood as an historical event.  One may reject a particular historical narrative and assert that it's a myth or a fable, but then it usually comes down to the one's rejection of the supernatural or the providence of God rather than the proper interpretation of Scripture.


I love you, too, Lauren.        

22ndJanuary2011 Starting a Blog

My sister, Shelley, has inspired me to start blogging.  As punishment, she'll have to follow it.  My daughter, Joanna, helped walk me through the set-up, so she'll have to follow it, too.   I look forward to their constructive comments.

My high school English teacher was Mrs. Martin.  She taught me well, but I'm sure I was a source of aggravation to her.  Do not blame her for any poorly constructed sentences or grammatical errors.

Winters are cold and long in Minnesota.  It's gonna be below zero again tonight.  As my son, Daniel, would say, "It's cold enough to pop the balls off a brass monkey."  That might sound vulgar, but it isn't.  Back in the days of sailing warships, the cannonballs were stored on a brass rack called a monkey.  If it got cold enough, the rack would contract & the balls would pop off.  I tried this on my deck a couple of years ago.  When the mercury hit 5 below it sounded like the climax of the 1812 Overture as the balls bounced around on the deck.  I didn't find all the balls till the snow melted in the Spring.