Dutchman's Pipe

While walking around my parent's yard, I stumbled across a new flower I had never seen before.

I plucked the open blossom and my mother identified it as a Dutchman's pipe, a flower she remembered from her childhood. She had not seen the flower since her childhood, so was excited when she came across one at a flower show.

I did not reallize it on first seeing it, but after closer inspection, I realized that the flower was a carnivorous one. None of my lenses let me focus in close enought to truly show the fibers in the throat that would let a bug crawl down, but never let it out of the container in the back.

Prior to opening the bud appears as a liver-veined bladder on the vines.

Thought is it mid-fall, the plant is just now fully recovering from the drought.  There are a number of bulbs growing in one part of the vine. I am looking forward to seeing just what they turn into after blooming and whether catching a bug makes a difference in the post-bloom response.

 

Tradition: UT-vs-A&M (and TCU)

         For decades, a highlight of the football season in Texas is the Thanksgiving week matchup of the University of Texas Longhorn and the Texas A&M Aggies. Almost everyone in Texas takes a side in the game. For 118 years, it was the game that captured the attention of a state.

         When A&M moved to the SEC, the annual rivalry went with them.

         Rivalries play such an integral part of the sports. From high school, to college, to professional sports, rivalries provide a focus of the season – even a bad season. No matter how lop-sided the odds going into the game, fans pin hopes for the entire season on the one game. The winning side, not only the team, gets a full year of bragging rights to utter domination (no matter how close the score). Any winning margin is utter domination.

         The Texas-vs-A&M rivalry was so great, legend had the winning team getting a trip to the Chicken Ranch. Only Marvin Zindler (and a few hundred former football players) know the truth.

         Beyond bragging rights and non-NCAA sanctioned rewards, rivalries build communities like few other events other than disasters. Unlike disasters, the rivalry comes on a regular basis and only brings woe to the losing foe. With the UT and A&M rivalry, someone else wearing burnt-orange became an instant ally while those in anything else maroon became an instant foe. While some rivalries turn nasty, in most cases the taunting of friend and co-workers (and strangers on the street) who root for the wrong team (any team other than yours) is more jovial than serious.

         You do not REALLY want that to happen to their mother.

         With the flight of A&M to another conference, UT has to replace the Thanksgiving game with relative upstart TCU. TCU has had several very strong seasons, coming close to a national championship game; however, their overall history has not qualified them for big-league football. Though they joined the Big Twelve as a replacement for A&M, they are still not quite there.

         I guess if Baylor can be in the Big Twelve, then TCU can too.

         It will be a few years before the burnt-orange-vs-purple rivalry is as fierce as the burnt-orange-vs-maroon rivalry grew to be. At least in the interim we continue to have the Red River Rivalry between UT and OU. It creates its share of enthusiasm as an interstate rivalry, but never the passion within Texas as the intrastate game held.

         And I have yet to come up with a good anti-frog chant. Beat the frogs sounds more like a down under pest-control technique than a football cheer.

         And any reference to horny-toads just hearkens back to Chicken Ranch days.

         Maybe with enough anything-but-beer during the game all will be fine.

 

Joy that Matters

         The World English Dictionary defines joy as “a deep feeling of happiness or contentment.” I use that definition over the American standard definition of joy as a synonym for happiness. Happiness, though, comes from a surprise or something in life that delights being present: it is short term. Both life experiences and my faith have lead me to the more solid definition grounded in the words, “a deep feeling.”

         Unfortunately, as a counselor, I see too many people coming into my office with fast food emotions: they are fleeting, here now and different in a moment. Emotions are not valued and very often people do not invest in them the effort it takes to make them meaningful. Emotions exert great influence on our daily lives. Days can be ruined (or made) by those fleeting experiences to which no one else gave the least thought.

         For the last 20 years, since I came to understand that joy, real joy, cannot exist as a fleeting experience, I have sought to live my life in a search for joy. It has been both a personal and a spiritual journey to find out what it means for me. Living in joy does not mean I am happy all the time; very often I am cranky about something. Smiling does not come naturally to me; it never has. Frowning, or a non-happy expression on my face, is normal it does not mean I am unhappy or upset about something. It means I am being me. No matter my expression, my driving core emotion is joy.

         Living a life in joy means making decisions about career, relationships, faith, and budget that impact daily quality of life. My career (and the specific job I have now) reflects my personal values of social justice and social responsibility: as an educator, I have impact. I confine my relationships (friendships) to people who add value to my life – even if we disagree on key issues. My faith guides my personal values (particularly those that shape my career) and it determines my religious affiliation. How I spend my money shapes my happiness. Though I am a self-described tech-geek, I do not purchase every new toy that comes out: I have what I need. The decisions I make lead to that deep feeling of contentment with my life. I lay down at night with few regrets and wake up each morning excited about the opportunities in the day. Consciously making decisions with such a goal in mind impacts everything.

         The concept of joy in the Christian church comes from the direct connection to God. Nothing in that connection is temporal which is what makes joy different. The Old Testament and the Gospels and Epistles list joy as a characteristic of believers. Believers gain joy by having a personal connection to God that leads to the eternal promises that come with their belief. The connection to God presents itself daily.

         In the fast paced world with changes taking place faster than we can track them, contentment and joy seem like antiquated ideas. Joy, real joy, keeps us grounded like no other emotion and gives us a way to navigate the turmoil around us.

The Other Me

         I just read an article about the fake names celebrities give when checking into hotels and it made me want to be famous enough to need a fake name.

         I guess I could give a fake one without being famous, but it would not be as much fun.

         For years, when I traveled professionally, I, along with my co-workers selected an alternate identity we would give the authorities if we were ever arrested. None of us ever expected to be, but just in case we did not want our name in the paper. I chose the name of another administrator in the district about my size and build (though much-much older) and who grew up in the same geographic area as I did.

         If I were ever arrested in another city, I would insist my name was Kent Ewing.

         We (with a Napoleon complex) stick together (whether he knew it or not). Of course, now that he is retired, his name does me no good.

         I need to start stalking district administrative meetings to find my next alias. And if I cannot find a good doppelganger, I will just have to go with Stormy Strudel.

         First though, I have to become famous.

Salisbury Steak

Another comfort food that I enjoy from time to time is Salisbury steak. I had actually forgotten about it until I saw a mention of it a few weeks ago on a cooking show. When I came across cubed steak at the store yesterday, it inspired me to try it out. The relatively few ingredients and ease of preparations makes these older recipes favorites. With a few new ingredients, they can be as current as anything else with a regular rotation through my kitchen.

 

6 cube steaks

Flour

Salt

Pepper

1 Can diced tomatoes with green chilies

½ cup diced onion

½ cup diced green pepper

Water

 

Mix flour, salt, and pepper together and coat cube steaks. Fry on each side in a little oil (enough that it does not stick). Spread about ½ the diced tomatoes, onion, and green pepper in the bottom of a Dutch oven or similar baking dish. Spread the fried steaks over the vegetables, doubling them over one another if necessary. Cover with remaining tomatoes, peppers, and onion, add a little water. Bake at 350° until the steaks are fork tender.

In addition to being remarkably simple to make, Salisbury steak is one that has been much maligned because it uses such cheap and basic ingredients. While cube steak is often one of the cheaper cuts run through a tenderizer a few times, it can still be challenging to even the best of teeth. Cooked long enough with the liquid, just like slow-cooking a roast leads to tender, flavorful meat. With the colorful vegetables in the mix, it is also nice to see on the plate.

 

Change and Such

         I have heard that only babies like change.

         I do not believe that.

         Ask anyone and they will likely provide a list of things they want to change – about themselves, about their work, about the people around them. The status quo gets boring. The longer we do the same thing, the more likely we are to find ways to do it better – change what we are doing. Regularly we are changing things around us.

         Yet when change comes from the outside, the chorus of “why can’t we leave it the way it was” rises quickly, and often most loudly, and from those people calling for change. Law, policy, new information directs change from many directions. Some of them questionable. Some of them worthy. Change happens and is a force in all we do. Our lives are stressful – or not depending on how we handle the changes that come.

         Years ago Holmes and Rahe developed a scale on how much stress a person has in their life. The scale calculated stress based on life-changes a person experienced in a year’s time. Whenever I ask someone to look at it, they are shocked to see that even positive changes create stress in life.

         Deaths (of family or friends) are stressful.

         Relationship troubles are stressful.

         Getting fired is stressful.

         Yes, even getting a raise is stressful.

         So is a vacation.

         Every change we have in our life is stressful. When the stress points total 150 points in a year, the person has a 50% chance of developing an illness. When the points total 300, the person has a 90% chance of developing illness or some other kind of blow-up.

         While Holmes and Rahe provide a guide to change stress, perhaps most important about change is how we approach it. Change and such happens around us on a daily basis. What matters is how we go about approaching it. We can resist and fight all change, increasing the stress that comes with it. We can take the opposite tactic and go with the flow to reduce the stress (Wrong! Going with it when we disagree with it is just as stressful as, or even more stressful than, fighting it).

         Or we can select our battles. Accept that change happens around us and let some change go unchallenged because it is part of the environment in which we work/live, but challenge those things that matter most about us. The energy that stress requires can be turned to something positive. Prescribed change challenges even the most resilient person, but the better we learn to manage that change and our reaction to it, the healthier we will be. We cannot prevent change, but we can control our response to it.

The Elegance of Numbers

All my life I have been a word man. For as long as I can remember I have taken great pleasure in reading and writing. Whether or not anyone else cares, words through stories, essays, poetry, and scripts have captured my imagination whether they were the creation of my imagination or that of others. Words constructed the images that shaped my life.

Over the course of my life, I have written far more words than have ever been seen by anyone. That’s fine. I write much more for me than for anyone. Honestly, all three blogs I maintain are about me.

It is what it is.

In the last few weeks, though, numbers keep striking me with an elegance that I have never noticed.

Maybe it comes from the primary focus of my job being data collection and distribution. I have spent more time playing with Excel in the last six months than I have in the previous 45 years. (Yes, I know Excel has not been around 45 years, but spreadsheets have been.)

The numbers that have struck me though have had nothing to do with my job.

The roundness of the “6’s” when my odometer reached the 58666 mile point was only surpassed by the 58888 mile point.

And there was the anticipation between 59999 and 60000. I noted both mile points but missed the transition as I was in bumper-to-bumper traffic and preferred to avoid a collision rather than monitor the odometer.

Perhaps it is thanks to digitization of numbers rather than simple analog and handwritten numerals that create the esthetic nature. I never noticed mile markers, time, or patterns when numbers were written by hand or ticked over on plastic rolls.

Perhaps it is that I spend hours each day looking at numerals. Each one represents a student or group of students. The numbers are personal instead of a value. These are numbers that matter.

Whatever has happened, the simple elegance of numbers has overwhelmed me in recent months. The beauty of the patterns, the lines, the curves, have all captured my imagination. They encapsulate a beauty of which I was never aware.

Every time I see a group of numbers, I am struck by a beauty in them I have never noticed before. My brain has changed.

A Good Deer Year

Every year when fall approaches we start to check out the oak trees to see how many acorns they are putting on. The more acorns and the earlier they fall, the better it will be for deer hunters - deer thrive on acorns and put on weight rapidly when eating them.

This year is a good deer year as far as acorns are concerned.

 The narrow snouts and nimble tongues of the white-tailed deer are perfect for picking up the acorns scattered under the broad live oak trees.  Because they can so rapidly gather the acorns from the usually sandy ground, they gain weight and go into the winter with a healthy store of fat, though in South Texas some kinds of greenery are almost always growing because winter usually lasts about two days in February.

It is not such a good year in South Texas for cows though. With their broad snouts and thick tongues, the cows pick up more dirt than acorn and end up going into the winter rail thin. Ranchers dread the years when cows start chasing acorns because it leads to financial losses for them. The less a cow weighs, the less it is worth at market. The shade from the evergreen live oak tree tends to keep the ground underneath sparsely grown with grass, so there is much dirt for the cows to lick up.

Just like everything else in life. What works for one does not work for another - and so it is with acorns. What is not a good year for ranchers, is a good year for hunters.

Long After Lance

         A few weeks ago Lance Armstrong experienced a particularly rough span with allegations, which he decided to stop fighting, coming on particularly strong from many directions. My first inclination was to believe him, and the harsh comments the judge made regarding the case bicycling’s governing body made supported my inclination. But the more that comes to light about the scope of doping Armstrong did across the years, the more I suspect USADA wanted to bring it all out in the hearing.

         As the charges continue to roll out and damage Armstrong beyond the race route, the more I wonder what the fallout will be to other athletes as more doping charges will surely emerge. From the loss of the race titles to the damage to his namesake foundation, Armstrong faces threats far beyond a suspension or denial of a hall of fame; a life’s-work could be wiped out.

         Modern athletes transcend the sporting venue and have become more brand than athletic performer. As a result, performance in the sporting venue becomes even more important as it advertises the brand.  Such pressure tempts the use of performance enhancing drugs and it increases the risk of using them. To cheat or not to cheat?

         While Armstrong raced in an era of doping so rampant that the agencies governing international bicycle racing refused to do anything more than leave the record books blank for the years of which his title was stripped, it does not in any way diminish the degree to which his doping damaged the sport. He regularly chimes that he was the most tested athlete in history. To go to the lengths necessary to circumvent the system that Armstrong had to do magnifies the level of deceit he perpetrated against the sport.

         Even though I wanted to believe he was telling the truth, that Armstrong will be recorded as a cheat and a liar in sports comes as no surprise to me. Having lived in Austin twelve years now – and moving to Austin in the middle of Armstrong hype – the community has been filled with story after story about his generally nasty, self-absorbed personality. A co-worker served on the jury trying a driver who nearly hit Armstrong. After his testimony, they wished the driver had hit him, backed up, and hit him again. While the superficial celebrates a winner, the larger undercurrent celebrates the skinned knees.

         The revelation of doping only confirms the underlying character. Armstrong gave hope to millions of people with cancer. Now we know it was a misguided hope. He did not do it on his own; he knowingly and intentionally manipulated the system to promote the image he holds of himself. Unfortunately, his self-image conflicts with reality. He presents an unfair image to those millions.

         Hope is a powerful tool.

         Hope changes even the most dire circumstance.

         Dashed hope, in this case is deadly.

         I cannot help but resent Armstrong for the damage he did to those cancer patients who clung to his story as a motivation for their own success. For the donors to his foundation who ask for their money back, I feel for you. You fell for a lie.

         But for those cancer patients, the world is filled with cancer survivors who do AMAZING feats without cheating, without misleading everyone. One person’s dishonest conspiracy should in no-way diminish your hope because the truth is there are far more who have survived gracefully with their own force of character. They just do not have a publicity machine pumping out the story. They survived for themselves. Ultimately, everyone lives for themself.

         Still, after following the Armstrong story for years I wonder what lessons will be learned from his grandeur fall. History says no. Those who perform at the very highest levels eventually believe the myth that they are unshakable no matter the fall of those before them. 

 

And Justice for All

         Each year at Veteran’s Day, we reflect on the sacrifices made by those who served in our armed forces to preserve the freedoms we value so highly as a nation. We remember those who died and honor those who returned. We celebrate that we live in a country whose ideals have survived wars, social change, political upheaval, expansionism and isolationism. No matter the prevailing winds, the commitment to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and “liberty and justice for all” reign in each philosophy though we have many different ideas about how to get there and what those phrases exactly mean. Nevertheless, we celebrate them unquestioningly.

         In the last decade, and most vociferously in the latest election, debate raged over what these things mean in the scope of the government and the church. Labels like “socialist” and “bigot” flew from both sides toward anyone who believed differently than the insulter. Rather than examine the beliefs of the other, name calling became the easier tack. Anyone who understands what either of the terms means, knows that they were grossly misused, thus meaningless except for the sting of insult and serve to hurt the Christian image on both sides.

         It is no wonder the fastest growing religious group, is the group of people affiliated with no church whatsoever. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, Jr., noted that their message had gotten out to the public, but that it was rejected. The polls finding that more people were turning away from the church are doing so because of the judgmental attitudes of those who proclaim Christian morals.

         This is exactly where the Church gets it wrong. From the books of the law through the prophets, Gospels, and epistles, acting with justice toward all overwhelms every other direction given to God’s people in the Bible. The Bible is equally explicit that God will be the judge, not us. As long as we spend our time fighting over who is or is not a Christian, both sides are being equally unchristian. We only regain Christian when we turn our faith into action by doing what Jesus commands.

Let’s be absolutely clear. Christian social justice, be it church or state originated, is far removed from Socialism. Social justice, from the Christian perspective, means removing barriers to equality for all people and caring for those, who, in times of need, are incapable of caring for themselves. Removing barriers involves guaranteeing that the justice and financial systems do not lock people into a lifetime of need, but that even the poorest can work their way out. Caring for others includes making certain people have the food, shelter, and medical care needed to overcome whatever situation makes them incapable of caring for themselves. Social justice means elimination of barriers keeping people from equal access. No one should be trapped in a lifetime of poverty or need due to confinement of social systems.

Likewise, social justice does not mean a lifetime of support from church and state systems. When the barriers are eliminated and the basic needs met, one is expected to leave the situation behind, move forward, and then help others who are needy as they become able. Some, through illness (including mental illness) or injury may need a lifetime of support, but it is not the norm.

         The central Gospel in New Testament social justice comes in Matthew 25, though it is hardly the start or end of the social justice message. The other Gospels include teachings from Jesus regarding wealth and the poor. Acts and the Epistles offer examples of how the church cared for the needy, the orphans, and the widows. Jesus brought all the law and prophets down to two commandments in Matthew 22:37-40. Love God wholly and love your neighbor as yourself: the laws about treatment of the disenfranchised continue into the New Covenant.

         While there is no doubt and little disagreement about what the Bible tells the church and Christians to do regarding the needy, much debate rages about the state role in social justice. Here too, the Bible makes it clear, that nationally, we are responsible to those in need. The law for Israel demanded that the nation care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the traveler: it was a national responsibility. Verses across the prophets describe the judgment of God on the nation coming because the nation refused to take care of all its residents. Nationally, we are responsible to make certain our social systems (legal, financial, medical) do not protract the length of time anyone spends in need.

         Unfortunately, the churches are spending too much time fighting over theology to meet those temporary needs for most, so nationally we are responsible to minimize the need within our boundaries if we are to call ourselves a Christian nation.  If every church lived their theology as much as they publicized it, there would be little need for the government to do social work beyond education. We, who call ourselves Christian, must do, not just believe. The doing is much harder than the believing, but it is what makes us Christian. If we believe it then we must do it. If we do not do it and shift the responsibility to the state, then we have no right to call anyone who advocates for state programs socialist or liberal.

         We, Christians, abdicated the responsibility and likewise relinquished any authority for name calling. The last election showed that the majority of the country do not buy fundamentalist social arguments, divisive rhetoric, or scare tactics over religious liberty and it is killing the (big C) Church. The only way left for the Church to regain credibility is for the Church to start being church and doing those things necessary to act on the mission of Christ.

         I am the first to admit that there are missions I have never been able to do. I have tried, but cannot bring myself to work with the homeless. As a trained counselor, I see too much mental illness among the homeless in the times I experiences I have had with homeless populations. I feel the need to “counsel” and help, but the opportunity to do meaningful counseling does not exist within any current structure. As an educator, though, I have ample opportunity to make a difference with that population and that is part of my ministry.

         My counselor training says not to use words like “must” and “should,” but as a Christian, the Bible directs us to the “musts” and “shoulds” any follower of Christ is to do. For me, God surpasses counseling philosophers. No matter where one looks in the Bible, social justice is the directing philosophy. The church will always lose the argument on social justice when its words, rather than its actions, dominate the headlines. We, people of the church, have been even farther behind at some points in history. We, people of the church, have overcome at some points in history to guide state policy.

         It was done with action, not words. Listen to the prophets. Live the Gospel. Love God wholly. Love your neighbor as yourself. That is social justice. That will change the world.