Entries in Life

As someone who never really thought up reasons to be, or not to be, a parent, This list of reasons is pretty good.

I love kooks. You can tell because I find the following rms quote especially entertaining. rms is a “devout” atheist, but he says:

indeed, it seems to me that a sincere Christian must condemn non-free software as satanic in spirit. If you were Satan, and you wanted to corrode the bonds of society, what could be more effective than offering individuals something attractive, profitable or fun, on condition that they refuse to share it with anyone else?

Now, I do try to avoid using satanic, er, proprietary software, and for almost the precise reason’s he mentions, but I’m amused because his statement implies that he imputes hypocricy to Christian users of, say, Mac OS X. But it does make you think. In fact, when Marco Fioretti wrote about Free Software’s surprising sympathy with Catholic doctrine, it got many Christians (especially Catholics, of course) to think about their use of non-free software. Of course, I see this as just so much cultural blindness. Christians are so immersed in their culture that they don’t think deeply about things that are not directly addressed by the traditional expression of their faith. This is not a failing of either the Christian or his faith. However, when you are confronted with an uncomfortable fact or a new perspective that hadn’t occurred to you before, you have a responsibility to consider its impact. At the top, I said “I love kooks” and mentioned a well-known (in some small circles) kook. The even less-well-known kooks are interesting as well. Take this exchange in the comments of that article:

  scary stuff  By iang1965 (192499) on 2006.04.16 7:09 (#125135)    This kind of discussion is, quite frankly, scary. I would have  to question the mentality of the person who deems it necessary  to relate a software license to a religious doctrine.  

  Fear moral choice  By Anonymous Reader on 2006.04.16 9:30    Right, nothing more terrifying than living a life based on  ethical beliefs. Hide quick! Here comes a cadre of  vegetarians, volunteer firemen, and nuns!  

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who get the heebee-jeebees anytime any sort of religous belief is mentioned.

Sortly after posting The Joy of …, I saw that had pointed to this wonderfully thoughtful re-telling of the rich young ruler meets Jesus on Real Live Preacher. comments that this story illustrates perfectly what I see as the major flaw in seeking solace through religion. At least he doesn’t say “the major flaw of religion”! Instead he says that the story illustrates the problem of “seeking solace through religion”. I had to look up solace to make sure I understood what he was saying: “Comfort in sorrow, misfortune, or distress” or, more simply, “comfort in disappointment.” In RLP’s version of the story, there seem to be levels of belief. When Solomon first asks his question, Jesus answer is, essentially, “You’re doing exactly the right thing.” And many people would be satisfied with that answer. It would give them the solace they desire. They could return to Jesus words again and again in later days and be assured that they were doing the right thing. But, for Solomon, it isn’t enough. He wants more. He wants, in venacular of the Orthodox, Theosis. And the answer he gets from Jesus isn’t comforting. Instead, it shakes him completely. “Give it all up,” Jesus says, “and follow me.” The written accounts of Jesus Life that we have — the Gospels — are pretty cursory. They touch on the high points and don’t tell us a lot aabout the context of each encounter. For example, it wasn’t until I began to contemplate what was going on in the three short verses of Matt 4:18-20 as an adult that I began to understand the challenge of Jesus message. My Sunday School teachers told the story more than once – Jesus said “Follow me” and the fisherman went — and I just accepted it. Of course they would follow him — it’s Jesus, after all! But, as an adult, I began to think about the challenge more and I could see myself in the fisherman’s shoes. And I wondered how many other people, confronted with Jesus’ invitation couldn’t take it. We only read about the rich young ruler, but surely there were others. If there is solace in the Gospels, it is this: that Jesus showed us God has compassion on everyone — even those who can’t bring themselves to commit themselves unreservedly to him. The people in the crowds followed Jesus only intermittently, but he still taught them, still kissed their children, still healed their diseases. I’m a lot like the people in the crowds. If I can find the time, I’ll go meet him, but I still have business to attend to and sometimes that gets in the way. I end up struggling even to believe — Help my unbelief! — and I’m not even close to giving up everything. But there are moments when, like Solomon in RLP’s story, I fantasize about sleeping under the stars.

Anytime someone starts talking about “The Joy of X”, be careful. What they’re about to talk about is probably going to involve some work to get to the joy they raving about. Yes, even “The Joy of Sex” takes work. But, I’m thinking in particular about the two phrases people toss around most blithly, it seems to me. I thought about it this week as I tore out a wall made up of some old, poorly installed sheetrock and good old plaster. Plaster that had been installed with some Type-B Cut Nails — so it had been there for probably 100 years or more. I was taking down the sheetrock because I wanted to paint the room, but somewhere in the history of the room, someone had done a poor job on that wall. This is the “Joy of Home Ownership” — and, let me tell you, this joy isn’t a giddy feeling like small girls might feel when a celebrity glances their way. This joy is more like a contented sigh: “I’m glad that’s done. And glad I did it. But, man, what a lot of work.” I can only imagine what my friend Jim Bonewald thought about this kind of joy when the basement of his new home flooded. It certainly wasn’t what he hoped for when he bought the house. Joy like this doesn’t come easily. More than giving me something that I value, this joy changes me and helps me grow. This isn’t the kind of thing I actively desire. I’ve stumbled into it because I just expected to buy a house and, when buying a house I would think “Look at the ‘good bones’ this place has! What a bargin!” and not think long and hard about the work involved. If I had, I probably would’ve bought a smaller, newer house. Because joy is imbued with, and born of frustration. The other “Joy of” that people toss around blithly is that of “Parenting”. Parents, of course, know that this joy isn’t bliss. It isn’t the sort of joy that makes you skip down the street with a silly smile on your face. Joy peeks at you between annoyances, long nights, and screaming babies. After days of colic, a baby will smile at you in a way that takes just a little of the edge off and gives you strength to carry on just one more day. Or a child who is especially obstreperous excels at her math and you feel that maybe there is hope, after all. Or your son, now with children of his own, continues to struggle with a drug addiction and you carry on, helping to care for his children, because you know the hope those children represent and need. And, after all those years, hopefully you can say “I’m glad that’s done. And glad I did it. But, man, what a lot of work.” I’ve only begun to work on my house. The oldest of my children is not even 10-years-old. I’m learning house repair and child rearing “on the job” and struggling with both. Frustrations mount and triumphs seem rare. There is some joy, some satisfaction. But mostly, there is growth. As I go through both of these processes, I see how little I know, how little I can control and begin to see how much change I can hope to effect. People who avoid “The Joy of …” may be onto something. Joy doesn’t mean bliss. It means responsiblity, destruction of fantasy, and removing the illusion of control. And what does it offer? Growth? Are you out of your mind!?!?

Yesterday was great. I sat down with Ginger, Basil, and Violet and we put together a Lego Rover ‘bot. Not much. Just something to move forward, backward, turn, and respond when bumping into stuff. Not only were the kids hooked (especially Basil), but I am, too. I’m thinking up lesson plans and developing programs to help me with them. I’ve asked to go over angles with the kids so that they can program the rover to roll out simple shapes. On my end, I’m looking at making adjustments to the the XSLisp interface and thinking of writing either a GTK or Emacs (of course!) front end to it. That, and a simple library of functions will make this effort a lot simpler. I’ll be posting a short HOWTO for getting XSLisp running on the latest BrickOS shortly.

Tomorrow, our adventures into programming Lego Mindstorms begin. It took a little doing, but I managed to get XSLisp compiled and working on my brick. I’ll be posting a HOWTO shortly. For starters, we’re just going to build a simple rover using the program in this paper. You could consider this cheating since I haven’t had time to come up with anything really didactic. That’s ok, though. I don’t want to bore them to tears right out of the gate. Perhaps we’ll take the rover and modify it somehow over time.