Music of My Life Project

So I recently turned 34. Last year about this time, I decided to put together a soundtrack for my life. I selected 11 or 12 songs from throughout my life that meant something to me and put them in order. This year I'm going to do it a little differently. For the next 34 days, I am going to select 1 song per day taken from a year in my lifetime. I will start tomorrow with Year 0.

Sometimes, this will be a song that spoke to what I was going through at the time, or perhaps my attitude. Other times, the song selected will invoke a particular memory or a person or place. Sometimes it will be just a song that I really enjoyed. I already have some songs in mind, but I am going to leave this as a organic process and see where it goes.

Christian or christian?

So when I was growing up, I learned to differitiate the words 'Communist' and 'communist'. A 'communist' was a person who beleived in the economic philosophy of communism, i.e. all ownership, profits, and debts are communal and the responsibilty and priviledge of all members. A 'Communist' was a member of the Soviet Communist Party, which is communist only in name, and, from what I understand, was much more a political and economic oligarchy.

The reason I bring this up is because of something that Michael Gatlin said in his message last week. He quoted a person he had met years before, saying "If Jesus were alive today, would he be a Christian?" (Capitalization is mine, obviously) It made me wonder if there is a distinction between christians and Christians and what that distinction might be.

My natural inclination is to extend the Communist/communist analog further and say that one is a person that seeks to become like Christ, while the other is a member of an organization which may or may not hold to the teachings of Christ. The problem, and it is merely a sematic one, is which is which? The word 'communist' comes for the base word 'commune', so capitalizing it sets it apart from the original meaning. But 'christian' comes from 'Christ-like', so should the original term be capitalized of not?

Well, a quick look at Wikipedia, confirmed by digging out and looking up in my junior high edition of Writers Inc, tells me that adjectives that are derived from proper names should retian the capitalization. Therefore, I am a Christian man. I would assume that a noun derived from a proper name would also be capitalized. Therefore, I am a Christian.

So I think what I need to do here is the opposite of the convention that I learned regarding c/Communism. Christian will refer to a follower of Christ, while christian will refer to a member of an organization. Although I don't find this solution altogether satisfying, either. This will require more thought.

So I'm sitting in my office on a conference call. While I'm on the call, Mat and Charlie come home. Right now Charlie is in the next room, playing with Bionicles and singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" to himself over and over again. Well actually only 2 or 3 lines of it over and over again. It is really cute.

So often I feel (and I suspect others feel this way, too) that I am missing so many opputunities to teach my children and give them the things that they need. I worry that I'm warping them or damaging them without trying to. But every now and again, and thankfully with my kids it's more often than not, they do something that makes me feel very comfortable with the parenting job I'm doing, because they are such great kids.

So I wondered into a website today. It is called Positive Atheism (www.positiveatheism.org) and it is interesting. I like to read the thoughts and reasonings of atheists and agnostics. Some are earnestly open and seeking truth. Others are as, or even more, dogmatic than any catholic monk or Bible-belt pulpit-thumper.

My first thought when I saw the name of the web site was that this was a positive look at atheism. Not positive as in happy or pleasant, but positive as in defining atheism with positive evidence, rather than simply defining itself as opposed to religious institutions and everything that they believe. This site did not live up to my hopes. But this is not suprising, as atheism is in itself a negative belief; that there is no god. I liken it to something Einstein said about this theory of relativity, "No number of experiments could prove me right, but one could prove me wrong."

For this reason, I have always found agnostism a more intellectual honest approach. And in fact, even being a "theist" myself, I think that a certain amount of agnostism is a good thing. The Jewish zealots thought that the Messiah was coming to free them from Roman oppression. The fact that Jesus came to free them from a completely different and deeper oppression, I suspect, caused a large number of them to miss out on what Jesus came to offer. If only they could have tuned into what God was doing, rather than their interpretation of what God said through the Scriptures. That's why I tend to stay away from the obsession to pour over Revelations and Daniel to peice together what God will do in the End Times. Chances are even if God put it in there, I would miss it or mis-interpret it badly.

But turning back to this website, it seems to me, from this and most past experience with atheists, that atheists attack the Church itself, and in particular, the Catholic Church, rather than the tenants of the christian faith. In this, there is, unfortunately, far too much ammunition. The Inquistion, the Crusades, subjectation of women, corruption, sexual abuse, selfish political manuevering, ectera ad infinatum. However, it is strictly an Ad Homminum attack. For those of you who did not take Logical Fallicies 101, Ad Homminum is latin for "against the man" and involves attacking a person's character rather than a person's arguements.

This site devotes a lot of space for quotes. Quotes can be fun, but typically do little or nothing to further a logical discussion. In fact, it can often reduce a reasonable debate to mindless sloganeering and fanboy one-up-mans-ship. Quotes can pose ideas. Then can even argue points to a degree, but they tend to be trimmed down to such a degree that they can only be used to state one person's opinion. What Samuel Clemens said about the Bible can only be used as evidence in an arguement about what Samuel Clemens beleived.

It does cover a little (actually a disappointly scant little) of statements from Biblical text. There is certainly a lot in the Bible (particularly in the Old Testemnt) that is offensive to our modern western mind; slavery, women's rights, corpeal and capital punishment, etc. But the arguements are strictly one-sided and do not address the vast cultural differences between then and now. The points they bring up seem to indicate a very cursory view of the Bible. By that, I only mean that there are many more shocking elements from the Old Testament than are mentioned there. So if the effort is to alienate the world of the Old Testament, there is more and better points to make.

He lives! Yes, it's been many moons since I posted here. Life happens and the blog kinda fell by the wayside. I was laid off from Onvoy and got a job with Orange Business Services. Same role, (almost) same title, but Orange is a LOT bigger than Onvoy. Onvoy was restricted to companies operating within Minnesota, for the most part. Orange only deals with companies that have an international presence. This mean fewer, bigger customers. But luckily not much travel, as I only have responsibility for companies based in Minnesota.

Anyway, what brought me out of my semi-retirement from the Blogosphere is an e-mail draft that I found from years ago. I wrote this for a friend when he got married like 6 or 7 years ago. I'm not even sure if I ever even sent it. But I like what I wrote and I think it's fairly universally true (and not confidential or even personal). So here it is for your consideration....

***, I meant to do this at your wedding, but there wasn't a good time, and I think I might do a better job if I write it down anyway. You chose me to be a groomsman at your wedding. I was very honored. I also consider it my duty to support you and Becky in your wedding bliss in anyway that I can. It's in that spirit that I'm writing this note. I don't mean to imply that this is the key to maritial happiness, but I think that Seren and I have a good marriage, and this is what has worked for us (well, me in particular).

First of all, I have the impression that you are a Christian. I don't think we have ever really discussed it, but that is just the feeling I get. If not, this next part my seem a little strange. The Bible commands us (men) to love our wives as Christ loved the church and wives should submit to their husbands. When I first heard that, I thought it was unfair. Why should men get to be in charge? However, I have come to realize that being in charge isn't all its cracked up to be. Being in charge means being responible, doing the things that need to be done, not doing the things that shouldn't be done. It means sometimes saying no when you really want to say yes. It means making sure that there is a roof over your heads and food on the table. It means sacrificing for your wife and family the way Christ sacrificed himself for the Church. Really, it's an awesome responsibility. Men are wired to do this. And when the mantle of leadership is approached this way, I think that women are wired to respond.

This does not mean that the man does everything. I'm not saying the wife shouldn't balance the checkbook, or buy things, or make money. But in important decisions, the husband decides and the husband lives with the consquences. I think that even when the husband does not make the decision, he will still take on the responibility of a mistake, which only leads to a feeling of helplessness.

Philosophically, that is how I approach my marriage. Now, Seren feels the same way I do and that may be why it works, I don't know. But I think it works pretty well.

As for solid pieces of advice:
- Look at your wife often, at least once a week. When I say look at her, I don't mean just glance in her direction and note where she is. Stop what your doing and really look at her. Remind yourself that this beautiful woman is the one you have choosen to be with for the rest of your life. Find the beauty that you saw on your wedding day. Time and circumstance might distort the veiw, so take a minute or two to look for it.
- Compliment your wife whenever you can. Even if your world is falling apart, try to lift up her. In the end, you may well need her to scrape you up off the floor.
- Remember that your wife is human, with all the wonders and terrors that come along with that. Do everything that you can to understand her.
- Realize that your wife is not always rational. I'm not saying this as a joke. Women are the slaves of their emotions. The way around this is not to fight the emotion or try to agrue with it, or even try to convince the woman that she is emotional. Just be as loving and understanding as possible. Eventually she'll realize that the emotion is driving her and that she can trust you.
- Do not betray a woman's trust. It is alot harder to build than it is to maintain.
- If you ever do have problems ( and I'm sure you will :), seek help. I know Seren and I would be more than willing to listen. Sometimes just vocalizing the problem can bring things in to focus. Anytime, anywhere, just give us a call.

May Christ live in your marriage and keep it strong,
Chris