Category: Uncategorized

My son Jesse is in Vietnam, managing construction projects over there, teaching folks how to plan and build. Vietnam is booming right now, and companies there are looking for ways to leverage American construction knowledge. I talk to him most mornings, (or in his case, evenings), and through these conversations I’m coming to understand more about craftsmanship, quality, and just how much I’ve taken these values for granted in my life.

Jesse’s particular “craft” is decorative concrete. He’s an artist really, who happens to use concrete materials to build beautiful work that becomes part of a home or place of business. From stamped patios to countertops, he cares deeply for how something looks, and how well it’s put together. He’s built a valuable reputation as someone who “does it right”.

When a Vietnamese company hired him to come over there and work with them, he thought it was for his skill with decorative concrete. Now that he’s over there, though, he’s realizing that their culture is a long ways away from even beginning to understand that sort of concrete.

It’s a pretty foundational concept and value in the American Psyche – the notion of quality workmanship. During my own generation, we let some of that value slip away, and it’s still slipping today. But it’s such a basic underpinning of who we are that many generations will pass before we’ve lost it altogether.

Not that we do everything right. Not that we don’t know how to do shoddy work. We make mistakes, and we do sometimes do shoddy work. But we know it’s shoddy when we do it, and we generally see the mistakes for what they are.

For years, Detroit built cars that were works of art. To this day, few things are as beautiful as a ’56 or ’57 T-Bird, or a ’58 or ’59 Corvette or ’63 Corvette Stingray. How about the ’67 GTO (in black of course). These cars were all built as a result of a solid connection between the American worker and a belief in good workmanship and a quality product. I could go on for pages and pages about things like American furniture, or the solid stone homes throughout the Midwest, or the fine bicycles that are built in small shops across American still today.

We get quality. We get fine workmanship.

I’m learning through Jesse that this isn’t a universal notion – the idea of understanding quality workmanship. As he tries to teach workers in Vietnam some of the most basic notions of how to build a quality product, he’s learning that their cultural vocabulary just doesn’t seem to include an appreciation of a well-planned and well-executed project, or of the difference between a truly fine concrete finish and one that’s barely passable. Their cultural vocabulary seems much more focused on getting done quickly, regardless of the future costs of poor planning. They have a focus on the appearance that something is completed, rather than on an understanding of something done well that will last.

I remember when I was young, and a tag that said “Made in China” was something I was taught to avoid. It implied not only that the product was probably cheaply made, but also that buying the product supported a “system” that we didn’t believe in.

Somewhere in the 56 years of my life, we’ve turned this notion on its head. Now corporations like Walmart seem to be dedicated to stuffing stores with junk made in China. And people shop at these stores, either unaware or uncaring about what this represents.

50 years ago, “Made in America” represented something of great value. Good, hard-working people went to work in well-paying jobs and made good quality products. We knew how to pay people well to do a good job, and how to create and innovate. We knew how to build a 1958 Corvette. OMC built motors that would last for generations, not months or years.

We could have exported this to the rest of the world. We could have taught the rest of the world how to appreciate quality in the same way we appreciated quality, and how to find the elegance, simplicity, and beauty in products that were made well.

Or we could have imported another way of thinking. We could have imported the idea that cheap is better than good. We could have imported the idea that workmanship is worthless, and we need to pay people the lowest wage we possibly can, rather than a wage that will allow them to live well and support other well-paying jobs.

The American Worker would have benefited far more from the first course of action. We The People would be much better off if we’d have invested in exporting American Workmanship overseas. However, large corporations could show a better short-term bottom line by following the second course of action.

Guess which one we chose? We’ve now effectively eliminated organized labor in this country, which was the single most important factor in maintaining a living wage for the American Worker. Companies like Walmart have been very effective in exporting American jobs overseas, while working tirelessly to assure that their workers never enjoy the benefits of organized labor. We’ve lowered our standards of quality in this country, and we’ve accepted that everything we buy is throw-away.

For anyone who thinks I’m being racist in some way in this article, I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t that people in Vietnam or China are “less” somehow than people in America, it’s just that their culture places value on different things. In many instances, I think there are values in these cultures that we should be learning from and importing – they’re better than ours.

But understanding quality and fine workmanship isn’t one of these. Quality Workmanship seems to be something that still flows through American blood, and this is one of those things that we should be exporting, rather than importing the alternative.

Jesse’s a smart guy. He’ll figure out how to teach his colleagues in Vietnam how to focus on quality workmanship, and how to run a project efficiently. By the same token, I’m sure there are some extremely valuable qualities that he’ll pick up from them. I’m just sorry that as a country, we didn’t do that same thing, and instead allowed the short-term profits of a few large corporations like Walmart to define the decline in the culture of American Craftsmanship.

What if one of the major news networks had a reputation for consistently pressuring reporters, editors, and producers to present information that was blatantly biased, distorted, or plain lie? What if they had a reputation for going so far as-to fire reporters and others who refused on ethical grounds to write or produce stories that were fabrications and lies?

I know we all talk about how untrustworthy certain “news” sources are, and we know that there’s one in particular who has the sort of reputation I’ve described. We also know that there are lots of folks who watch this particular news source, and who’s response to such accusations always seems to be something to the effect that everyone does it, and their source just gets picked on more than others.

But surely if one of these allegedly fired employees took this news outlet to court, (let’s call them faux news here just because we’re talking about making stuff up), said news outlet would work hard in court to vindicate themselves – to prove that they don’t really force their employees to lie and fabricate stories just to support their political agenda. Right? Surely they would, because if they didn’t, they’d be exposed as nothing but a lying propaganda hack, right?

Wait for it…

What if instead, this faux news network went to court and argued that sure, they lied and made stuff up, and that it was their right to do so under the first amendment. Furthermore, they had the right to fire people who refused to lie with them and for them, as this also somehow was covered by their first amendment rights. No refutation of the allegation that their news was fabricated to support a particular political agenda, no fight for credibility in the eye of the public, but brazen boasting that sure they make stuff up and lie to their audience, and they have the right to do so.

No really. This really happened. I’ll not name anybody here – if you think I’m making it up there are lots of ways to check it out and form your own opinion about what happened. They were sued and lost, and upon appeal to a federal court, the verdict and award were overturned. They then went on the air and boasted that they’d been vindicated. I’m sure their audience thought that meant that it had been decided that they didn’t lie after all, rather than the truth, with is that they argued that of course they make stuff up and lie to their audience. And they won. They now have court precedent allowing them to continue to blatantly lie and distort and make up whatever they want to, and present it to the public as-if it were truth.

I know this all sounds really surreal. But it’s really true. And the saddest part to me are the following 2 bullets:

• That the courts in this country once again treat a corporation like a person. There is no Bill of Rights for corporations – THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE. The First Amendment protects the speech of The People, not of a corporation.
• Most sad is that the folks who watch the collection of trash that they call news on this particular network are not swayed in the least by this sort of revelation – doesn’t bother them a bit that they’re being fed fiction and lies and distortion in the guise of “news”.

I don’t care what side of any political spectrum you’re on. Personally, I’m very conservative, but not at all right-wing. We should all be responsible enough to demand a level of truth and credibility from our news sources, and when one of them does what this one did, anyone with an ounce of concern for honor, integrity, credibility and truth should never, ever, allow that outlet to run on any media source they watch.

Care to guess which one it was? 🙂

Common Decency, Common Courtesy, and Common Sense – critical to the survival of a culture. While the definition of each of these might vary slightly culture to culture, I think there’s some foundational common ground.

As a culture, we seem to have lost our bearings with regard to this 3-legged stool that supports a culture. When it happened I’m not sure, but it feels like it’s been rapidly accelerating over the past 30 years. We’ve lost the ability to allow any disagreement into our dialogue, as we no longer have an understanding of how decency, courtesy, and sense can guide us to learn from one another when we disagree rather than hating and hurting one another.

Common Decency

The desire to treat our fellow human beings with respect and compassion. The willingness to forego some comfort or profit in order for another to be more comfortable or to feel some small gain. This notion of common decency is foundational to most religions. In the case of my own religion – Christianity – the entire religion is based on the teachings of a man who gave himself completely to not only teaching these principles, but to demonstrating them in the life he led.

But these principles seem hidden in our culture today, don’t they? There will always be mean-spirited people who lie and cheat and bully others, but a culture founded in common decency will shun and banish those people. How is it then, that people like Limbaugh and Hannity and Orielly and Beck and Olberman survive and thrive on the airwaves of our public square? How is it that Americans continue to shop at stores like Walmart who strive hard to assure that good jobs aren’t available in America, both by continuing illegal and immoral practices to assure that American workers can’t organize, and by producing every product they can overseas in countries that consistently support labor practices that most of us would consider slavery, child abuse, or worse?

We make decisions every day with our wallets – our continual vote in the marketplace. Every time we allow one of these abusive, lying, cheating bullies to appear on a TV that we watch, we cast a vote in favor of what they represent. Every time we make a purchase at a Walmart, we cast a vote in favor of what they represent. We have absolute power to simply set our jaw, and make them go away by refusing to support them and what they represent.

Yet we don’t. Why not? Our refusal to take a stand against these practices makes us complicit in their actions. Certainly supporting the concept of reasonable wages will make our prices rise, but the America I grew up in had the decency to allow my neighbor to make a living wage rather than force him to live in poverty so I can pay a little less for some trinket I might want to buy.

The lying, cheating, bullies are out in force right now as we run up to our election. Will we continue to swallow their pill of dishonesty and lack of common decency, or will we set our jaw and vote with a conscience rather than with our selfish greed?

Common Courtesy

I had dinner with a friend not long ago, and our conversation meandered around to courtesy. As common decency has crept further and further from our relationship palette, so courtesy has become less and less important. Courtesy is an expression of care, concern, and respect for another person. Extending a courtesy to another person is an open hand that lets them see the respect you have for them.

My daughter went through a period when she refused to let me open doors for her. She’s a strong-willed and intelligent young woman, who seemed to see having a man open a door as an expression of weakness on her part. As she’s grown up, I’ve noticed that she not only lets me open doors for her, but will actually pause slightly to give me the chance to open it. She’s come to realize how much it means to me when I’m able to express my respect for her by opening the door for her, and she’s learning to give this gift to me more often. She’s every bit as strong-willed as she ever was, and becoming more intelligent every day. And she’s learning the art of courtesy in a culture that’s working hard to keep her from doing so.

I should mention also that my daughter is teaching me a thing or two about courtesy as well. Although I really don’t care a bit about fashion, and have nearly zero fashion sense, I’m allowing myself to learn from her – how to identify “cute” shoes, what colors go together well, etc. I do this not because I really care about cute shoes, but because these are things that are important to her, and by learning from her, I give her a gift and a courtesy.

The courtesy that our children display is a perfect reflection of what we have taught them about how to express care, concern and respect for other people. How our generation behaves is far less important than how the next generation behaves, and the common courtesy we teach them has a very big impact on that behavior.

Common Sense

Common sense was, at one time, the true measure of a person. If a person has all the education in the world, but lacked basic common sense, s/he was considered to have little practical knowledge. If a person spewed rhetoric that couldn’t stand up to the rigors of logic, s/he lost all credibility.

It was important that a person be able to sew a button on a shirt if necessary, or to understand the most basic principles of how to put something together or to apply common repairs. This represented common sense, and the ability to understand things and solve problems. Today, such things have come to represent “common” labor, and fewer and fewer people can do these things. Worse, they’re often proud of their lack of common sense, making it clear that they don’t have the ability to perform these basic tasks, apparently unaware or uncaring of the lack of common sense this displays.

In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and common sense he is a pretty poor creature, and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.”

Lest anyone sense any taint of sexism in this statement, the reader should also know that in the year 1913 – well before there was any sense of gender equality in our culture, TR also said, “Much can be done by law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal rights with man – including the right to vote, the right to hold and use property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same terms as the man.”…”Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.”

The decline of common decency is directly related to the decline in common sense. It’s the loss of the common sense required to discern truth from fiction that’s allowed the ascendence of the liars, cheats, and bullies that are paid so much money by the media to spew their distortions and half-truths. The lack of common sense keeps us voting for people who spoon-feed us honey while destroying the orchard, and keep us spending money with multi-national corporations who are destroying the fabric of our economy.

Like every culture, ours is held up wholly by the 3 pillars of civilized behavior – Common Decency, Common Courtesy, and Common Sense. I question how much longer we can stand as these pillars erode around us. The power to rebuild them and make them strong lies completely in our hands. Will we pick up the tools and start to repair the extreme damage that’s already occurred.

Seed-heads ripen and stand dry on the dead stalks of the Echinacia and Rudbeckia in the garden. The tops of the grasses turn golden as they dry in the autumn sun. The Agastache and Mexican Sage are the last strong flowers in the garden, and with the first hard frosts they die back as well.

To the untrained eye, the garden in autumn represents “the end” of the season, but to the seasoned gardener, the autumn is really the beginning of the next season.

Woody plants cut off nutrients and water to their leaves, as they conserve the energy they’ll need for the upcoming bloom – right after they take a nap… Hardy perennials shed their tops and curl up in the energy of their roots, preparing for the explosion of new growth that’s soon to come – right after they take a nap…

This is the height of the gardening season for the birds. Goldfinches line up for a place on the drying seed heads to pull morsels out for dinner, beginning the life of new plants that the seeds will produce thanks to the help of the birds. The last of the migrating hummingbirds dine on the Agastache and Mexican Sage, helping them to begin their new year further south. My bird feeders empty twice as fast this time of year, as they’re shared by a few remaining summer residents, most of the new winter residents, and a few migrating guests.

It’s easy to look at this time of year as a time to cut everything back in the garden – to “neaten it up” before winter. But this is a time when the garden needs to stand and prepare for the coming season. Cutting some plants back too fast can trick them into thinking they need to send up new growth now. The multitude of birds depend on the heavy growth that remains in the garden as protection from hungry predators, as well as depending on the seed-heads on the plants as they die back to provide a good diet. For the forbe eating birds, the heavy growth also provides a higher likelihood of some high-protein bug-snacks.

I’ve been moving through a “cleaning out” stage in my life recently. I make weekly trips to the Goodwill store with bags of stuff that it’s time for someone else to have. I’m trying not to go too fast, or to make rash decisions. While it’d be easy to see this time in my life as an “ending”, where it’s time to clean things up as the kids have moved on to their own lives. I choose instead to see it as only the beginning of the next growing season. I need to move slowly through the cleaning process and keep the garden healthy. As the winter moves along, I’ll need to continue to cut things back in their time, and keep the garden as healthy as I can for the next stage of this new growing season.

Happy gardening. Enjoy that standing grass and the seed-heads as the birds enjoy the meal. Look forward to the snow that’ll keep the roots warm as they’re curled up for the winter. Keep checking those closets and corners for stuff that it’s time somebody else took off your hands…

The recent Pew study that found Atheists and Agnostics had greater knowledge of traditional religion (such as Christianity) than did Christians seems to surprise quite a few people.

See the study results here, but the summary is that folks were asked a series of 32 questions about religion. Nearly half of the questions were specifically about Judea-Christian knowledge of the Bible and Judea-Christian religion. The other half of the questions were a mix of questions about religion in the larger world, religion and the constitution, etc.

Folks who identified themselves as Christian did not do well on this survey. In fact, the folks who were the most knowledgable about religion were folks who identified themselves as either Agnostic or Atheist. It should be noted that those who identified themselves as Jewish were not far behind the Agnostics and the Atheists. Mormons scored well too. (I should note that it appears that Mormons are lumped in with Christians, so the Christian scores without the Mormon help would have been dismal…)

One other thing that jumped out at me: Those who said that they took Scripture literally – that they thought that the Bible represented the actual words of G-d – those folks scored significantly lower in actual knowledge, while those who did not believe the Bible should be taken literally scored significantly higher in actual knowledge.

Surprised? The results make sense to me. Folks who’ve gone to the trouble of thinking through religion, and have consciously decided to call identify as Agnostic or Atheist have probably asked tougher questions, and have probably gone through more analysis and study to arrive at their conscious decision. My guess is that if you were able to pull out the folks who called themselves Christian AND who’ve arrived at that identification through the same analysis and study would probably do as well as the Agnostics and the Atheists – they’d probably do even better.

On the other hand, if you accept Religion as something that just is, and you don’t ask questions about it, you probably don’t know much about it. In fact, you probably don’t see it as a problem that you don’t know much about it. You’ve decided to drink the kool-aid without questioning what’s in it.

The results point toward the need to dig in and ask tough questions of religion. Be willing to push against the places where there aren’t good answers. Accept uncertainty regarding where your questions may take you, and be willing to embrace the mystery of the places you might end up.

I don’t buy that asking the questions will lead a person automatically to a lack of faith. In fact, I strongly believe that it’s the job of religion to encourage folks to ask the tough questions, and to help them to journey toward relationship with G-d. Because at the end of the journey most people will, in fact, find G-d. Sure there will be many who don’t find G-d, but I many people will.

Whether the person who took the journey ended up finding G-d or not finding G-d, it’s the journey itself that’s important. Agnostics and Atheists appear to be more open to taking the journey, although many might argue that they’ve predetermined that they’ll not find G-d on the journey. Sure there are some of those, just like there are some Christians who predetermine that they will find G-d.

I say, give it a whirl – step out onto the dance floor – take the journey!

There’s a nice discussion of correlations between martial arts and religion by David Rusak – click here to visit the article.

The article, (apparently without intention), highlights the ancient connection that has existed between the martial arts and religion. In fact, most of what we call the martial arts today grew out of specific eastern spiritual practice, some Taoist, some Buddhist, some Hindu.

The author uses the phrase “religious practice” in the same way he uses the phrase “martial arts practice”. Great phrase. I love the way the author refers to the fact that early in a practice, the student assumes that there’s some universal truth behind the exercise, only to learn later that some other form of practice uses a different exercise to teach similar concepts. Isn’t this the core of religion after all – each form or discipline has developed its own mythology, dogma, and ritual to get students “practiced” in the disciplines – accustomed to using the “muscles” required to consider and reflect on Divine Presence? Each different religious practice is only preparing the student for a journey – getting them accustomed to using the “muscles” that will help them maintain the grace and poise required to stay focused on the journey.

I wonder if most martial arts have a tradition of assuming that students should strive to advance beyond the basic “dogma” and “ritual”. I know many religions have this assumption – that as we mature and advance in our ability to ask good questions and progress further on our journey, we should be able to emerge from the other side of our lessons with the ability to continue seeking without the need for the myth or ritual that got us to that point. (Christianity and Judaism for example have this tradition.)

This doesn’t mean the student throws away the myth and ritual that brought them to where they are – they should embrace it as a good and strong path. When they outgrow that path, they’re expected to continue to seek, only they now need a path “further along”. Do martial arts assume that this happens as well – that the student will come to the point to which the author has arrived, realizing that there are many paths that lead to a place similar to where he is today, and that from this point the practitioner must “journey on”?

FYI, I was referred to this article by a posting at SoF-Observed (Speaking of Faith blog).

Interesting how this works so often. After my post yesterday talking about “why things happen”, I see that the Daily Dose today at Chabad.org talks about essentially the same thing – with a slightly different spin. If you don’t want to follow the links, here are the words:

“

Unveiling the Spark

In every hardship, search for the spark of good and cling to it. If you cannot find that spark, rejoice that wonder beyond your comprehension has befallen you.

Once you have unveiled and liberated the spark of good, it can rise to overcome its guise of darkness and even transform the darkness fully to light.

“

I was at dinner with a friend not long ago, and we got around to the topic of “why things happen”. Of course, we weren’t talking in a scientific or an analytical sense, but rather in a philosophical / religious sense. Another way to broach the subject might be to ask whether or not all things happen for a purpose, or whether things just happen, and we make from them what we can. Fate vs Opportunity.

While I’d like very much to believe that G-d is shaping His multiverse around me and around the everyday events that need to happen in my life, I can’t seem to get to that place with either my heart or my mind. There’s just too much world in this solar system, too many solar systems in this galaxy, too many galaxies in this universe, too many universes in…

I guess it boils down to the age-old question: “To what degree does the universe revolve around me as a person?”

That’s really the hurdle that we’ve got to get past, isn’t it? When Galileo challenged the details of the traditional Old Testament creation story, he was jailed by the church until he recanted. The traditional creation story makes it quite plain that man is at the center of the earth, and that earth is at the center of the universe. It’s a very painful process to challenge this notion that I’m at the center of the universe, and everything in turn revolves around me.

In many ways, it’s no different than the maturation process of a human from infancy to adulthood. When we’re born, all we know of the universe is the mother that takes care of us. As we grow, our perception needs to expand and evolve, as we learn that there are many other children, many other mothers, and that we need to fit into this much bigger picture. This expansion process needs to continue in order for us to “grow into” the real world. At whatever point we stop allowing ourselves and our perception to expand, this is the point at which we lock the size of our world.

And of course, G-d’s world is quite large indeed, isn’t it? The question for each of us is this: “How much can I allow my perception of the world to expand toward the complete universe of G-d?”

This is not a new question – wise sages in the Bible (both Old Testament and New Testament) often compared human faith and human maturity, making it very plain that our faith was to mature, evolve, and change as we grew more wise, and more aware of the world that we fit into. Of course, when they were writing, the “known” universe was much smaller than it is today.

Back to my discussion with my friend at dinner – the degree to which G-d makes things happen in our life, vs the degree to which things just happen. As I think about this, it isn’t as simple as connecting the question to the degree to which I believe that G-d is “involved” in my life. It’s simply the degree to which the events of the universe are directed for my “benefit”.

It’s a question of “rights” vs “responsibilities” in many respects. It seems to me that the events of the universe are progressing along – one event or set of events impacting other events. To this point, the question of whether or not “G-d” even exists doesn’t matter – the universe is, and stuff happens – it doesn’t really matter “why”.

But then, I stumble into events, or events trip across me. This is where G-d enters the equation. It’s in how I choose to react to the events that my path takes me through. G-d isn’t hitting me over the head with “the world and the events of the world”, but rather asking me to bring the world a little closer to Her. Along whatever paths I choose to wander, and into whatever events happen to overtake me on that path, I need to work actively to bridge the gaps that I find between the present reality and the Eden that calls us.

G-d happens in whatever each of us does within the events that we stumble through in our lives. We’re responsible to take whatever does happen in our life, and to use those events to help move the world just a tiny little inch further toward Eden.

Of course, if you’ve been born into great privilege or great wealth, or if the “turn of the worm” in life has dropped great fortune in your lap, then it’s really tempting to believe that G-d wants you to have your good fortune and your good luck. We always want to believe that we deserve the good things we have. We always want to believe that G-d wants us to have the good things that we’ve got.

But when things aren’t so fortunate – when you don’t happen to live in the lap of luxury – when you happen to be moving down “Job’s path in life” – it’s then that we begin to question why it is that bad things are happening. It’s then that we have a tough time making this “deserve” concept fit. It’s then that we start blaming G-d rather than thanking Her.

If we drop this notion that we deserve anything at all, and drop this notion that we are at the center of the universe and that G-d is directing the universe for our benefit in some way, then we can more easily accept that life just happens. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We can start to focus on what we can do within each event that we stumble through to move this world just a tiny inch closer to the Eden that G-d calls us to.

The email account that the contact page feeds has been down for several weeks, but is back up now. I think that anything that was sent there just fell off into the black hole of email – the Pit of Despair.

My apologies, but it’s back in business now!

Here we are approaching mid-May on the High Prairie, and the forecast is for snow tonight and tomorrow. It’s cold and damp outside today.

The daylilies are looking so healthy and robust now, and the Iris are showing some fat buds. The Butterfly Bush are sending up shoots hoping for the warmth of summer to start sucking them faster from the ground.

But Mother Nature seems to be thinking about one last blast of winter. They’re calling for a foot of snow at 6000′.

How strong will the daylilies and the iris be on Thursday I wonder? This is so sad, to see this forecast, and to know the fate that it holds for those plants who are betting on the promise of spring.

Mother Nature is a harsh mistress on the High Prairie…