Tag: insights

Categories
life

Not My Will but Thine

I have been thinking about the prayer offered by the Savior in Gethsemane – specifically the plea “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39; see also Mark 14:36 or Luke 22:42)

I have had two realizations as I have pondered this plea. First, “let his cup pass from me.” Before I really thought about this I think I treated it as a line rehearsed for a play. I never really thought of it like that, but I did not recognize the truth behind those words. Christ really did not want to endure the suffering that he was facing. He really did wish that His Father would take the cup away. However, what he really desired was the results which that suffering would bring. The ability and opportunity to act as intercessor for men at the judgment bar, thus enabling mortal men to achieve exaltation.

The second realization (which came in the last few days) was enlightened by the first realization (which I had much earlier). “Not as I will but as Thou wilt.” Even as he sincerely prayed to have the cup removed, Christ knew the will of God. He did not merely have a pretty good idea of what His Father wanted from Him, He knew. Christ poured His whole soul out to His Father even where His will did not match the will of the Father. I have often prayed to do the will of the Father without knowing what His will was. I think it has often been an effort to avoid discovering what my own will was. “I want what You want so just show me where to go” or “I want what You want so, whatever happens I will assume that it was what You wanted.”

I think that the ideal situation is to know and own our individual will and to discover the will of the Father. We should then do the will of the Father whether it agrees with our own will or not. The reason that should inspire us to take that course is that we love our Father and our Savior and that our overarching desire is to return to them. That desire should be greater than any individual wish we may have that conflicts with what They want for – or from – us.

Categories
culture life

Each Little Bit Helps

I spent most of today (8:00 am to 3:00 pm) helping my brother-in-law move. I have done this kind of thing quite often in my life and I have noticed something worth mentioning. When there are lots of people around to help the moves go much easier. (This would be a good time for every reader to say “duh!”)

In the evening I went to the priesthood session of general conference at a local church building. When the session was over there were hundreds of folding chairs that needed to be put away. It occurred to me that if ever person in attendance folded one chair the work would be done in 30 seconds. Some might argue that only the people on the folding chairs should have to help. If that were the case it would be two chairs per person and the work would be done in less than one minute. Reality is that 75% or more of those in attendance leave without thinking about the chairs and many only pick up one or two chairs so those who try to clean up all the chairs have to take 6 or 8 chairs each and the work takes 5 minutes.

I am not trying to complain about those who do not pick up chairs. As I have shown, it is a small job even with most of the people not participating. What struck me was that there is another attitude which could make a long task out of cleaning up the chairs. If the chair cleanup were assigned to a group of perhaps 5 people, instead of a large-scale volunteer effort, the chair cleanup would require each person to pick up at least 40 chairs and the cleanup would likely take half an hour to accomplish.

As I watched the chairs disappear almost magically this evening I began to contemplate how much of the work in our lives really works best if each person would just contribute a small effort rather than having each major job assigned to a small group of specialists.

Categories
life technology

The Cost of Living with Technology

Years ago, I was in Missouri and I lived very close to a store run by Mennonites. One day while I was browsing in the store I found an ointment that is very soothing for sore noses and stuffy heads. Having those symptoms today, thanks to my allergies, I began looking for the ointment. When I could not find it I began remembering where I got it which finally led to the topic of this post. (How’s that for an introduction?)

Thinking about the Mennonites, and their Amish offshoot, I began to wonder what the cost of living was for them compared to the people who lived near them. The way I figure it, they still have property taxes like the people around them, but they don’t pay for telephones, or cable television. On the other hand, they have horses and other animals to feed and care for. They have carriages to maintain. They mostly grow their own food and make most of their own equipment. My best guess is that there are financial benefits and drawbacks to their lifestyle, but overall I would expect that their cost of living was lower than most people in this country.

I’ll admit that money is not everything in this life, so the real relevant question is – are they any less happy than those of us who have all of our modern conveniences? I suspect that any pollster who was willing to go door-to-door to ask them that question would discover that they are at least as happy as the rest of us. It’s something to consider next time your kid says he’ll die if he doesn’t get what he wants for his birthday.

Categories
life

Social Scripts

Everybody has been a part of this little dialog:

“How are you doing?”
“Fine, how are you?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Glad to hear it.”

And then both people go on about their day.

The question is – what happens when you don’t follow the script? What if you are not fine? The script is not so much about checking in on each other as it is about acknowledging each other. Even if you are not fine, you expect to say “I’m fine.”

Laura was telling me about talking to a friend who opened this script and for some reason Laura admitted that she was not fine. This was not one of her close friends, it was just someone. When she told me about it, I remembered an experience in high school where I had a good friend start this script, and I could not bring myself to mask the fact that I was not fine. Her response created one of my favorite memories from high school. It left me feeling like I was still okay even when I was not feeling okay.

Laura’s experience was much the same. I would say that she is now better friends with this particular woman than she was previously – because of the wonderful response she got. She felt that she was understood, and that it was okay to not be “fine” all the time. It just reminds me, once again, that people are amazing, and they care even when we might not expect them to really care.

Categories
culture life

Cell-Phone Culture

Over the course of the last year I have become very aware of what I call our cell-phone culture. Let me preface my commentary by saying that I have nothing against cell phones. I used to have one, and the day may come when I have one again, but currently I do not have one.

After moving into a new house and a new neighborhood last year, I found it hard to contact anyone in my neighborhood. I have been working with the local Boy Scout troop and I had phone numbers for most of the people but whenever I tried to contact people I could never catch them. I also discovered that there were messages being sent to “everybody” that were not coming to me. Given time I was able to diagnose the cause of both those problems. The messages I was not getting were text messages on cell phones – a loop which could not include me since I have no cell. The problem with me trying to contact anyone else was that I had their home phone numbers which were virtually useless since they all rely on their cell phones for people to contact them.

Since that first identification of the influence of cell phones on society I have identified other effects of the cell-phone culture. I see people around me busily doing much more than people did when I was growing up. There are more soccer games (or any other sport), more music lessons, and dance classes. Families are split in more directions as both parents run separate errands and any older children are busy with their own agendas. The members of the family keep each other updated on their whereabouts with calls and messages from their phones without ever having to see each other. This was all driven home to me this weekend when my backyard neighbor was talking to us over the fence. She had her phone with her and while we were talking she got a message from her oldest daughter. The daughter had gone shopping for a prom dress with the stipulation that her mother had to approve anything she wanted to buy. The message was a picture of the prom-dress-of-choice. No need for mom to come along in order to secure her approval. In fact it was not even necessary to take a picture and show it to mom for approval before going back to purchase the dress. She could go shopping and get the required approval while Mom was outside talking to the neighbors.

Not all of this is bad, but I have concluded that if and when I have a cell phone again I will be conscious to avoid cluttering up my schedule just because I can stay in contact while driving myself crazy and back.

Categories
politics

Good News for the G.O.P.

While I was just catching up on the news, I came across an article in the New York Times declaring that the rank and file memebers of the G.O.P. are not following the dictates of Karl Rove. I think that’s great news. I have thought many times that the Democratic Party seemed to have lost its way. I felt that they had very little to contribute outside of a constant cry of “Republicans are bad, just look at what Kink George is doing.” Lately I have begun to think that the Republican Party should lose their way since the way they seem to be leading the country is looking more and more like a path to self-destruction.

I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or the economy. I am talking about the “us vs. them” mentality. The Democrats seemed to be lacking an “us.” From the Democrats it felt like a “them vs. not them” mentality. Thankfully that looks like it might be changing. I just hope that one or both parties can come to something along the lines of “us and not us” where there is no assumption that “anyone who does not agree with us is anti-American (or stupid, or evil, or any other slanderous generalization).” The parties should stand for something so that I can respect them even if I disagree with them.

With the issue of abortion, most people talk about “pro-life vs pro-choice”. Both sides seem to be for something. Unfortunately, I have heard ardent supporters of each side of the debate talk about “pro-choice vs anti-choice” or “pro-life vs anti-life.” Those are both “us righteous crusaders for truth, justice, and the American way vs those stupid, communist, fascist, devil worshiping, neo-something-or-other social lepers” types of mentalities. They are not constructive, but they are passionate. I don’t mind passionate, but I would hope to have more constructive attitudes come to the forefront of both parties so that we can have some lively national debate on issues, and at the end of the day we still make things happen.

Categories
culture life

Personality Context

Let me first start out by defining my own introversion. This will allow other introverts to see what ways they are similar to me and what ways they are different. This will also help others to have a picture of the introvert doing the writing.

First of all, being an introvert does not mean that I am socially backwards, short on friends, or envious of all the extroverts I know. Second, I claim to be an introvert based on my own habits and observations, but also based on more objective measures including personality tests such as Myers-Briggs.

I am such a complete introvert that I thought my wife was an extrovert. She informed me that she is also an introvert (based on her own observations and Myers-Briggs). To top that off though, she had no illusions that I was an extrovert.

As an introvert, I seek to stay out of the noise and confusion that is so prevalent in the world. I prefer smaller interactions which are not based on formalism or social convention. I seek autonomy.

Categories
meta

7 Minute Lull

Most people have heard of the 7 minute lull. It is the idea that conversations tend to have a lull in them at regular intervals (theoretically 7 minutes). I have come to the conclusion that blogging has a similar phenomenon. This is based not only on my own blogging, but the blogging of many other bloggers I have read over the years. Everybody takes breaks from posting occasionally.

After 12 days of posting every day I discovered that I had not posted for two days in a row. That doesn’t worry me, but it got me thinking about the phenomenon. I have ready many times about the large number of blogs that get started and then die in their infancy. This is why. Many people, once they hit that first lull, never get back to blogging. The experiment ends and their voice goes silent.

I will not argue that everyone should get past that first lull, I know that blogging does not suit all people, but it is interesting to see the pattern. I suspect that most blogs that die do so on the first lull. Put another way, most blogs that survive the first lull will survive long term.

Categories
Education

Academic Weakness

I have recently recognized that one of my primary academic weaknesses is that I become intensely interested in everything I study. When I started out my interest in education was instructional design. Later I took a class in assessment, not because I was interested in it bet because it was convenient for my situation. By the time I finished my masters degree I had an emphasis in assessment and a goal to continue my studies in that area. At the beginning of my doctoral program I had not even been formally introduced to the study of social computing, but there was a doctoral seminar on the subject and I decided to take it. Less than halfway through the semester I am finding myself increasingly interested in social computing and I am convinced that there is much to be studied, understood and applied to education related to that subject. At this rate I will drop out of my doctoral program after 10 years and be interested in all areas of educational technology without having mastered any one of them because I will never have been able to sit down and focus on one area long enough to complete my PhD.

I am determined to not let that happen, but I find it exhilarating, exhausting and disturbing that everything becomes so interesting as to begin to consume my thoughts. It is a wonder that I can concentrate on more than one class in any given semester.

Categories
life

The Power of Direction

I have often floundered in my life when I did not feel that I had a direction in my mind for where I was heading with my current situation. I found myself in one of those doldrums last year – in about March.

I was in the middle of a very difficult second semester of my masters program and I was feeling very separated from my department and fellow students as a result of living over 100 miles from campus. I began to look forward to where I was headed and I realized that I was unsure. I wanted to get a PhD, but I did not know where and I was not even fully committed to that course of action. I had considered the programs at Brigham Young University and Utah State University, but I was leaning towards the program at the University of Georgia.

I made the question a matter of prayer and late in the month of March while I was deep in contemplation I felt the impression that I should have a look at the University of Missouri. I had applied and been accepted there among the many universities that I had considered for my Masters degree, but had never thought of it after I had chosen to do my Masters degree at Utah State University. I got very excited once I began looking at their program because many of the faculty were working in areas that I was interested in and they accepted new PhD students in the Winter semester which would allow me to continue directly after finishing my Masters degree in December.

From the time I decided to aim for the University of Missouri I did better in my classes and was more focused on my program and my long-term goals. I got in contact with faculty at MU and I knew what I needed in the way of grades etc. for applying to their program. I had deadlines to meet and all my uncertainty was gone. I guess I live for the future.