Profoundly Vulnerable

Sunday night my daughter Lily died, I was sure of it. And then she came back to life, acting as if nothing had happened. But something big had just happened, even if it only affects Marnie and me. Here's what happened. Marnie, Lily and myself spending an afternoon at Sholam pool with Beth, Daniel and the three girls. We were having a great time. Natalie and Analise were sharks, chasing me with open mouths ("Uncle Dan, I eat you!"). We practiced walking and swimming with Lily, and she was doing great. And then Marnie holds Lily in her arms, while I chat with Beth. I look over and Marnie is on her back with Lily's head under the water. I jump towards them, pulling them up, while Marnie talks about having slipped. Lily gives one good cough, outing a good quantity of water, and then stops breathing. She starts turning purple in the face. I grab up Lily and start running towards a life-guard. I can't even think of any words to say, I'm just yelling, "Hey, hey, hey!" The lifeguard seems to take a lifetime to realize I'm trying to get his attention, though in reality it surely is only a couple seconds. He blows his whistle, grabs up Lily, who by this time has become limp, and continues to purple. I have a vague sense of other people, employees of Sholam, running to the scene, as the lifeguard gives Lily a look-over. Marnie is starting to sob- not cry, sob, as in "my life is utterly destroyed" kind of sobbing. The only other time I've heard that kind of sobbing was the night after Kristina died, where the Sewell family has their hands on Mike as he realizes his wife is gone forever, not coming back ever, never will see her again gone. At this moment, fully discolored, Lily's eyes roll back in her head, and I remember thinking the words "Oh my God, it's happening." I couldn't even come up with many words in my head. I'm hearing Marnie wracked with sorrow, I'm watching my little girl look as dead as I never could have pictured in my head, and I think to myself that this is real, that shit can actually happen to me, that I'll never hold this little girl and feel her squirm and listen to her chatter again. Further thoughts are stopped as my whole respiratory system seems to go in shock. It's like the feeling of having butterflies in your stomach, except to a whole new level. The lifeguard has been giving CPR to Lily for a little bit now, and then Lily starts to make some small noises. She's turned somewhat away from me, so I can't see her, but I hear others say that she's starting to cry again. Someone tells me to hold Lily, who is starting to look more her normal coloring. I barely understand that somehow, miraculously, she's going to survive, that despite what my eyes told me, Lily is not in fact dead. Someone tells me that I should come to the manager's office, that EMS is on its way to check Lily out. Part of my brain still hears Marnie sobbing uncontrollably, so I grab Beth's attention to make sure she understands that Marnie is now her responsibility. Of course, while I've been with Lily, Beth has already been taking care of Marnie, fully in shock, but I know that she will be taken care of. My mind is numb with what has happened, but I can breathe and move around. I go to the manager's office, where they again tell me the EMS is on its way. A friend of Daniel's named Kurt, whom I met earlier,comes by and offers me a chair to have a seat. He offers it twice, and while part of me knows I should sit, another part is now worried about Marnie. I don't know where she is or how she's doing. Lily is looking like nothing has happened, and so that's who I'm now thinking about. As I'm standing holding Lily, my extremities start to tingle and go very numb. I really should have sat down, but I still didn't see Marnie. Eventually she makes it over, and the EMS guys arrive, take Lily's pulse, and basically declare the state of emergency to have ended. Marnie has mostly calmed down now that she can see Lily, who is poking my wedding ring. Marnie starts sobbing again in the car as we are readying to leave. My mind is still numb. The tingling wouldn't go away until Tuesday. Since then, it's been as if the screen saver of my brain is that scene by the side of the pool, with the lifeguard holding a dead Lily. Anytime my mind isn't actively thinking of something else, it goes directly back to those moments. Everything that Lily does brings so much more joy, even hearing Lily fuss and cry just brings a small smile to my face. I've realized just how much a human can love. I don't think it's possible to truly understand how powerfully you love someone until you've seen them dead and your whole body rebels against reality, screaming, pleading for some end other than the inevitable. Dave Barry (of all people) wrote an essay on a similar experience with his son, and he stated how extremely vulnerable he felt. That's it exactly. As I stood watching Lily in the lifeguard's hands, I realized this. I realized that accidents can and do happen, that once it happens there is nothing you can do, and that it can totally destroy who you are. As I bathed Lily that night (it will be awhile before Marnie feels comfortable enough to do this) I was so scared of Lily choking on some bath water, or some other unforeseeable catastrophe. I was and am profoundly vulnerable, and am now made fully aware of the fact. Final thoughts. I need to try to not blame Marnie. The pool was slippery, there were strong waves that could take your feet out from under you. More importantly, Marnie needs, truly needs, to not feel any guilt about this occurrence; she needs to just be overjoyed at having her baby girl with her. Do I thank God for saving our girl? Was it truly a miracle that she came back to life, or just the good training and action of the lifeguard on duty? Marnie asked me this that night, and my answer is that I could not possibly ever know. What I believe to be true is that I would not have my daughter Lily if it weren't for God- she and I wouldn't exist, and hence I am very grateful to God that I get to hold Lily, play with her, hear her shriek with joy over a silly face, watch her poke a leaf to figure out how this world works. I find myself caring much less about anything in this world that does not include holding Lily close.

Vending Machine Christianity

"He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake,
He knows when you've been bad or good
so be good for goodness sake!"
I find the above lyrics more than a little ironic, since of course kids aren't being good for goodness sake, they're being good so they can accumulate lots of loot!

When we relate this to religion, we may tend to think of televangelists- "Fund my 'I want a yacht fund' and God will bestow bountiful blessings upon ye!" Sometimes we try to negotiate with God, saying I'll do such and such, or I'll never do this or that again, in exchange for God doing something for us. Sometimes we find ourselves expecting something from God in return for following religious rules or practices. Oh, I think most of us could say why this is the wrong way to approach God, and could easily recognize such actions as vending machine Christianity, but I have the feeling that, extending this idea more fully, we may find ourselves a little more guilty than we recognized.

Why did we become Christians? Is it because we needed help becoming good people and knew it? Is it because we were overcome by the love that Jesus demonstrated to everyone he met? Is it because we heard about the golden streets and mansions and crowns of heaven? Was is because we were scared as hell of Hell? Suppose that one of the last two is true. Then, are we being "good for goodness sake"? Or are we being good to get something from God, namely heaven? Did we become Christians, did we follow religious practices, did we treat others kindly, give to the poor, all in the expectation of getting Heaven in the end? If at the end of life God said, "Sorry, heaven's not for you" would you respond saying, "But I was a Christian! I belonged to a church! I gave to and volunteered at charities!" Would we feel cheated? Would we instead say, "But Jesus I trusted you!" Now I'm not The Judge on such matters, but I'm guessing that anyone who would've said the latter would not have to say it.


The difference in those two responses is significant; it implies serious differences in why and how we became Christians and dictates who we become afterwards. When we become "Christians" we are transformed. If we became Christians to save ourselves from Hell, or to get some eternal reward then we are transformed not by the love of Jesus but by the love of self. We change the way we live because we ultimately want something for ourselves. The transforming agent is not Jesus' love but the spirit of profit seeking. When we see this, much of the behavior of the church becomes clearer. The existence of the judgmental attitudes and all the doctrinal disagreements makes sense. When our lives are shaped by love, then we pay attention to loving our fellow man under all circumstances. If our lives are being shaped by a desire to get to heaven, then we pay attention to whether our fellow man is doing the "right things" to get access to heaven. Do we care more about what a person does instead of who they are? Do we care about who's doing it right instead of how can we do it together?

We cannot downplay the promises Jesus has made us. They are great, amazing, beautiful. They give us hope, especially when life hands us excruciating pain. We need to know that Jesus has more plans in store for us. The idea of heaven can bring us hope and peace, but it cannot transform who we are into ones who belong to such a place. It may make us behave more like Jesus, but no amount of motivation can make us become more like Jesus. In the end, the only thing that can make us more like Jesus is Jesus.

Elegance in Science

I was asked to describe the elegance in science that points to God. But first, I believe it to be important to understand the term, or at least come to an agreement on a common understanding of the term, or at least know what I, the author of this post, take "science" to mean, because there are as many different definitions as there are scientists. There are quotes of all kinds, many very eloquent, that try to define this word, but for me it reduces to "the practice of trying to figure out how things work." There is much more to be said on this, but I will leave it alone for the moment. My idea of what is a scientist is directly predicated on my definition of science. In essence, it is one who is curious. I believe that all of us come out as scientists. We continually and without interruption attempt to figure out everything we can about this world we just entered. As we get older, we build more sophisticated ideas as our personal knowledge base grows and as our own capabilities for understanding expands.

You may have thought that I have forgotten the original question, but I have not. I have blathered on about semantics because I think that our curiosity is fundamental to understanding the wonder of God through science. Because God did not make a simple world. Everything is not just immensely complex, but infinitely complex. What man creates has a stopping point of complexity. We are fully able to figure out what the creator has done, and complete the project of "figuring it out." Only God could create a universe such as it is, with infinite complexity, ever smaller details, ever more intricate interactions. We will never have a complete answer for everything (or anything!), and so we, humanity, will always be compelled to look further and examine more closely, and think harder, and consider new ideas. We will never run out of things to be curious about! Any issue can be subjected to the child's tactic of asking why? why? why? There are always new questions, deeper questions to be asked, and always a point where we cease to have sufficient answers. That is the beauty of science, that we never fear knowing everything- praise God, for that would be a dull existence indeed.

I would also point out that there is an incredible amount of elegance within the answers that we find. In my experience with statistics, there have been so many instances where I would start with a complex model, go through pages of equations, algebraic manipulations, complicated derivations, integrations, summations and calculations, only to obtain at the end a solution beautifully understandable, so easily interpreted, something that our intuition easily grasps- this is elegance. There is also beauty in seeing how everything works together. There is an intrinsic power to awe within every field of science that I have studied. I enjoy learning about as many different things in the realm of natural science as I can, because it is truly enjoyable to see how things work together. Just as a mechanic can appreciate the ingenuity and capability that was required to build a car, so much more are we able to appreciate and enjoy how the things that God has made works.

Scholarships for Minorities

Illinois is the first state to provide a private scholarship for the children of illegal aliens. I'm actually disappointed, but not overly so. I think it's heading in a right direction, but essentially along the wrong path. I think it's terrible to label those who have been raised by illegal immigrants to be themselves illegal. It seems to me very cold indeed to go into the classrooms and pick out a few students and say that they must leave their friends and home behind, move to a new country where they speak a different language, where they won't be provided the same opportunities as their current peers, and will most likely be a much more dangerous place to live. Those students did not choose their parentage, and to say that they are criminals because of it seems absurd. So then why am I disappointed that Illinois has a private scholarship for the sons and daughters of illegal aliens? Because I hate scholarships based on anything other than merit.

I think that the fact the person A gets a scholarship over person B because of their race, ethnicity, parentage, or any other demographic is wrong. We denounce such things as racist or discriminatory if it is done in one direction and call it beneficial if it is in the other direction. Why should a son of a legal resident have to take out student loans and a son of an illegal resident have a free ride? The only correct answer to this question is that the son of the illegal resident happens to have worked harder in high school, made better grades, or scored higher on a standardized exam. Any other reason is in my book total bunk- unjust discrimination masquerading as charity. Honestly, I think if I were in the shoes of a minority who just received aid over a more qualified applicant due to my minority status that I would be insulted that some people think that just because I'm of such-and-such a race, or because my parents are here illegally that I somehow need more help than anyone else, implying that I am less capable because of the minority status.

I believe that I have a good idea why such scholarships exist- that a particular minority is underrepresented in higher education, and that a certain minority group is trapped in a particular low economic class. I think that it is perfectly noble to try to rectify such a thing, but that these minority scholarships are treating the symptoms, not the disease. Shouldn't we instead be working to make such minority groups produce more capable students, instead of giving mediocrity a chance to continue being mediocre? Please don't think that I'm calling all minority scholars mediocre! I've met some very very intelligent ones and were very good friends with them. What I'm intending to say is that instead of putting moneys away for scholarships, we invest it instead in producing the kind of students who will win equal-opportunity scholarships by merit. Instead of realizing that a certain minority doesn't typically produce as good of students as a majority and saying,
"well this is the best you can produce, let's see if they can succeed at a much higher level of academia" we say "let's try to help some of these minorities to develop into the kind of people who will succeed at a much higher level of academia."

Wingnuts- why I Left the Right

I have been more and more appalled at the extreme conservative right. I know that there are plenty of crazies on both extreme left and extreme right, but the election of Obama really set people off. Since his election we've had an abundance of crazy email chains, absurd issues brought up by politicians, the unbelievable comparisons made, and the circus that the conservative right media has become. The huge proportion of republicans who are unsure whether Obama was born in America, all those who think he's a socialist, communist, fascist, terrorist, etc.- it is simply unbelievable to me that this has become so widespread. Why is this? Why does it seem that people have lost their minds? Consider the comment someone made to me the other day that "the only difference between Osama and Obama is the BS." Really? The head of state of the world's superpower, the head of the most successful republic, the one whose administration continues the war against terror and has finally caught Osama bin Laden, is a terrorist full of BS? I've heard that Obama is the "enemy of humanity." Really? The same Obama who encourages Fathers to be good honest hardworking family men? The same Obama who wants to protect those children born by illegal immigrants? The same Obama who wants to make sure everyone has health insurance? You may disagree that it's the responsibility of the government to do these things, and that's fine. But enemy of humanity? I think it's obvious he cares about people much more than his crazy wingnut accusers (wingnut being defined by John Avlon in his book Wingnuts).

Despite all the patriotic rhetoric and flag waving, it seems incredibly clear that for the extreme conservative, allegiance to country is dwarfed by allegiance to party. As illustration to this, I take Rush Limbaugh's quote upon the election of Obama when asked to write 400 words on his hope for Obama's presidency: "I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails." Our president's failings lead to a poor economy, poor national defense, and a failure to unite the country (unification being, of course, an abominable idea to extremists, right or left, who want party purity). So in other words, Limbaugh would prefer this to having a Democrat who succeeds. So for Limbaugh, either an ultra-conservative (even more centrist Republicans are attacked by the wing) Republican is leading the country, or the country should fail for four years until there's another chance for an ultra-conservative to win. In Minnesota, this exactly happened, where extreme rights supported the Democratic congressional candidate to succeed over his Republican opponent, because the Republican candidate wasn't extreme enough.

What most concerns me is the connection between the crazies and Christianity. So many times I've seen comments that mix pure and unadulterated hate for liberals or centrists with God and Christianity. This makes me sick. It's the most unChrist-like comments that invoke his name in them. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, understand that Barrack Obama will always be an historical figure in American history as the first African American president. I think back to my visits to the Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, and I consider the section of the museum where Lincoln's critics are on display, making very harsh comments, calling him a dictator and such. But this will be nothing, absolute flattery, compared to the section in Obama's future museum displaying his critics. I fear future generations' opinions of us when they see this, because there are some dandies out there, thanks to wingnuts such as Limbough, Beck, Palin (there are so many others, but these get the most attention at least). I fear how often Christianity will be associated with these hate filled diatribes and criticisms, these absurd claims. I wish I could change Christ's name sometimes, just to remove him from these comments, because the Jesus I know has nothing to do with this. The party of Lincoln used to be centered in the north, and the Democrats held the south. This geography switched when Democrats started passing legislation on civil rights. And now the Bible belt became Republican because they opposed these civil rights. I'm so ashamed. This is much of what makes me feel such a personal distance from Church (with capital C) and the disconnect in my mind between Jesus and being a Christian with religion.

I used to be a Republican. Most of my life, in fact. But because of the hate that I see so prevalently, I will never call myself that again. That doesn't mean I won't ever vote for a Republican candidate if I think that they are the best option available, but due to my conscience I cannot associate myself with this paranoid hate and bigotry.




*If you somehow have missed the craziness that I've mentioned, missed the hate-chain-emails, missed the crazy comments by extreme conservative republican politicians or media heads, read "Wingnuts" by John Avlon (it's not an attack on the extreme right, it covers crazies from both sides of the spectrum, and it is not an attack so much as it is good documentation of what's been said). There's plenty of websites too that record such things as well. Some that I have read are:

http://blog.au.org/2009/09/02/pastor-of-hate-when-religious-right-rhetoric-goes-too-far/

http://www.good.is/post/fox-news-shocked-all-black-people-aren-t-burnt-sienna/?utm_source=supr

[skip to 1:35 or so] http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-24-2011/24-hour-nazi-party-people

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201010110001

http://mindschmootz.net/2009/06/the-base-of-hate-extreme-right-wing-rhetoric-has-consequences/

Osama

Well, we did it. Osama finally ran out of running room and got a bullet in the head. The people of America, and all over the world perhaps, is celebrating*, and rightly so in some sense, and horribly wrong in another. I just can't get myself happy about it. I'm absolutely excited in that we may have saved many many lives in the future- OK I get that. But happy that a man is dead to achieve that aim? Not so much. I'm sorry that a man had to die for that to happen. Yes, it was his own past and would-have-been-future choices that led to this necessity (and I agree that if capture wasn't possible then this was indeed necessary). But what unimaginable history, upbringing, environment, family could lead a person to such reckless hate and disregard for life? I don't know, and neither do you. I can't imagine living life with the goal to end others' lives. What a pathetic existence, and by pathetic I mean sympathy enducing, to think about missing out on friendships, love, morality (true morality, not religious), without the aims of bettering your and others' lives. As Harry Potter says to Voldemort in the 5th, ". . . you'll never know love, or friendship, and I feel sorry for you." Yes he's a vile person who needs to be stopped, but it doesn't mean that we don't feel sorry that his entire existence is so meaningless and cruel. He's dead now, so he'll never have a chance to change his heart, or understand why life is so precious. I know I'm in the minority for these thoughts, and that most people won't and can't get past that he needed to die. I still just can't imagine Christ celebrating over this though.


*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-new-york_n_856137.html

Why Karma Stinks

This is the third post I've had on why bad things happen, (with this post focusing on why it happens to good people), but I had a thought the other day I thought worth putting down.

Why does crap happen? Because we aren't mature enough to handle it. If God always rewarded those who did good, and punished or at least did not do good to those did evil, then the whole purpose of free choice is ruined. Sure we could still choose to do good or to do bad, but our motivation would be skewed. In the end, the purpose of free choice seems to me to get us to be Christ-like; that is, we start from an ugly mess and work our way choice by choice to where we love other people more than ourselves. However, if we knew that if karma was the rule, and that if I did good to others, then God would do good to me here, then I am becoming no more Christ-like then an investor who gives his savings to a company with the expectations of dividends and capital gains. Every good deed would become a profit, and so by making selfish choices, we become more selfish people, and by making good choices, we also are becoming more selfish people. Here's a silly example. I see a wallet lying on the floor in a store. In our world, I could keep it with the consequences of enriching myself and worsening my character, or I could return it with the consequences of getting no monetary gain but becoming more Christ-like and focused on other people. By returning it I would be more inclined to do the right thing the next time I am in a similar scenario. However, in a world ruled by karma, if I return it, I am doing it because I know that by doing so, God will heal my sick relative, or give me that job I wanted. My focus is all on myself and my desires either way.

So I conclude that a world ruled by karma would lead to the failure of God's plan for us, and would turn us all into selfish wretches. So obviously this is not our world, as good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to very good people. While my whole life I've thought of this as unfair, I now realize how impossible life would be if it were any other way. Maybe God is wiser than me, after all.