Dear Spike:
Far more people have argued about the Mojave Desert Cross than have actually seen it.
I'm pretty sure I passed it, once, just about 10 years ago, while taking a shortcut from the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms to Las Vegas. But if I noticed the simple, white structure, jutting from the top of a 30-foot rock outcropping, I certainly don't remember it now.
So I would never again have thought of that lonely drive had I not heard, this week, that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to hear arguments about whether the 75-year-old war monument should be torn down in adherence to the principle of separation of church and state.
Turns out folks have been fighting over this for years. Hiring lawyers and filing petitions. Building coalitions and organizing legislation. Fighting and writing and wrything in despair over two pieces of steel pipe, affixed at the center, painted white and planted in the middle of nowhere.
Here's the irony of it all: The people on both sides of this issue are good Christians. The man who filed the original suit asking for the cross to be taken down is a devout Catholic who says he is opposed to the government's exploitation of the most sacred symbol of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Those who want the cross to remain where it is say they're defending that same sacred symbol against anti-religious zealots who want to destroy all vestiges of God in government.
I wonder if either side has given much thought to the resources that have been squandered in this years-long legal battle. What else could those thousands of hours have done? What else could those millions of dollars have bought? Whose lives could have been bettered — or saved?
How is it possible that neither side has decided to turn the other cheek, as Christ commanded? To give to Caesar what is Caesar's, as Christ commanded? To use what limited resources we have in this world to help those who need it most, as Christ commanded?
There are things in this world worth fighting for. Choose your battles wisely. I often fail in this regard. And so I am in no position to cast any stones — only to offer some advice.
Fight the fights that are worth fightin' — and leave the rest to God.
love,
dad
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
TELL A STORY
Dear Spike:
Your imagination is blossoming like a summer rose, full of color and life and fragrance — an absolutely beautiful thing to watch unfold.
This evening, as I was working on my computer in the shade of our porch, you came outside wearing a set of butterfly wings and one of your mother's silk scarfs. "Would you like to come to a birthday party, Daddy?" you asked.
Well, who could say no?
"You have to wear this hat," you said, handing me one of your mother's straw hats with a purple bow.
No problem at all. I dutifully put on the hat and followed you into our home to find a table with a Play-dough birthday cake and a gang of costumed animal sitting on pillows all around.
"We've been playing birthday for the past half-hour," your mother explained, herself wearing a funny hat and scarf.
"You set this all up?" I asked her.
"No, she did," your mother replied, gesturing in your direction.
Later in the evening, you were bouncing on our bed like a caffeinated monkey on a trampoline when you suddenly decided you wanted a change of pace.
"A cave!" you cried, diving under the blankets. "Mommy and daddy come, too."
We all ducked under the blanket together and you began to tell a story.
"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago..." you began.
The story was about Goldilocks, the Three Bears — and you.
"... and then they all cleaned up the house together," you explained.
You can make a telephone out of anything. Once when we were out to dinner with your Uncle Papa, you spoke to Barack Obama on a pickle.
This afternoon, your mother tells me, you were on the line with someone of even higher stature.
"She was talking to God," she told me.
I wonder what She told you. Maybe tomorrow you'll tell me all about it.
Love,
dad
Your imagination is blossoming like a summer rose, full of color and life and fragrance — an absolutely beautiful thing to watch unfold.
This evening, as I was working on my computer in the shade of our porch, you came outside wearing a set of butterfly wings and one of your mother's silk scarfs. "Would you like to come to a birthday party, Daddy?" you asked.
Well, who could say no?
"You have to wear this hat," you said, handing me one of your mother's straw hats with a purple bow.
No problem at all. I dutifully put on the hat and followed you into our home to find a table with a Play-dough birthday cake and a gang of costumed animal sitting on pillows all around.
"We've been playing birthday for the past half-hour," your mother explained, herself wearing a funny hat and scarf.
"You set this all up?" I asked her.
"No, she did," your mother replied, gesturing in your direction.
Later in the evening, you were bouncing on our bed like a caffeinated monkey on a trampoline when you suddenly decided you wanted a change of pace.
"A cave!" you cried, diving under the blankets. "Mommy and daddy come, too."
We all ducked under the blanket together and you began to tell a story.
"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago..." you began.
The story was about Goldilocks, the Three Bears — and you.
"... and then they all cleaned up the house together," you explained.
You can make a telephone out of anything. Once when we were out to dinner with your Uncle Papa, you spoke to Barack Obama on a pickle.
This afternoon, your mother tells me, you were on the line with someone of even higher stature.
"She was talking to God," she told me.
I wonder what She told you. Maybe tomorrow you'll tell me all about it.
Love,
dad
Saturday, September 13, 2008
OF HER CREATIONS
Dear Spike:
I'm not fond of quoting scripture — I prefer Marx to Mark, Twain to Timothy and Einstein to Ephesians — but there are two Bible passages I remember from Sunday School that kept popping into my head this week.
Both are from the Book of Matthew — and both are purportedly the words of Jesus Christ.
He said: "Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's permission." And: "Whatever you failed to do for one of my brothers or sisters, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do for me."
So what's got your father going all Gospel this week?
This:
Misha's Sad Journey
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
She was born 27 years ago in the wilds of Africa.
By the time she was a year old, she had been ripped from her family.
Penned, chained and shipped to a noisy new world, her California keepers allowed her to roam only a few paces this way and a few paces that. She was bullied and dominated. She lost a baby. She was poked, prodded, cut and left in pain.
Misha the elephant died Tuesday on the concrete floor of a cinderblock building in a lot behind her most recent home at Utah's Hogle Zoo, some 10,000 miles from where she was born.
No one is yet is certain of what caused her death, at what could be described as "middle age" for an elephant. But one of Misha's former trainers has a strong suspicion: "She lost her will."
Out of Africa
It was the early 1980s in South Africa. Apartheid was law. Nelson Mandela was in prison. And the nation's population of elephants, which had fallen to less than 200 earlier in the century, had steadily climbed to more than 8,000, pushing against the capacity of the country's wildlife reserves.
Between 1981 and 1983, the South African government approved the killing of more than 3,200 elephants. The government also permitted the capture some of the animals - mostly juveniles, whose size and temperament made their integration into captivity easier - for transport overseas.
"The only way you could do it was to kill the mother first," said Les Schobert, a retired California zoo curator who procured a number of elephant calves in the early 1980s before growing disenchanted with the industry. "You couldn't get a baby elephant away from its mom in any other way. You had to shoot the mom and then collect the babies."
In most cases, Schobert said, the calves were still drinking their mother's milk and had to be trained to use a bottle. Many couldn't make the transition. From a quarter to a third of the calves died within four months of arriving in the United States, Schobert said. "That was the risk you ran by importing them."
Hundreds of elephants made their way to the United States in this way. Among them was Misha.
Under California Stars
At about two years old, when many elephant calves are just beginning to be weaned, Misha arrived at Marine World, Africa, U.S.A., in Redwood City, Calif., an aging theme park with animal attractions, a few low-tech rides and a popular water-skiing show.
In the summer of 1986, the park's menagerie - including performing pachyderms, tropical birds, wild cats, dolphins and killer whales - was moved to a larger campus, 60 miles north in Vallejo.
That's where elephant trainer Barbara Anderson met Misha, in 1990.
"We had 12 elephants at that time," Anderson recalled, ticking off the animals' names like a proud mother. "In particular, Tika, Tava, Misha and Malaika were all pretty tight. They were good friends."
Misha was always nervous, Anderson said, "and she was never going to be the dominant one in the herd." But Anderson said Misha also didn't let herself get picked on. It's unclear when that all changed - but park veterinary records make it clear that it did.
Anderson left the park in 1996, upset that the organization was not making better efforts to modernize its elephant training methods and habitats. "Of course," she said. "They were losing a lot of money."
Indeed, dwindling attendance had left the non-profit Marine World Foundation millions in the red. In the fall of 1997 it defaulted on its loans, which had been guaranteed by the city.
When Vallejo couldn't find a buyer for the park, it assumed ownership of the campus, buildings and more than 3,000 animals - including Misha's herd of elephants, which by that time was down to 10 animals. Promptly, the city turned control of the park over to the for-profit Premier Parks, Inc.
Living Out Loud
Premier had a plan: It would break from the park's traditional focus on animal education in order to offer its visitors more thrills. And if successful, it would exercise an option to buy the park.
At the time, Premier president Gary Story told The San Francisco Chronicle that his company had been "sensitive to add attractions which will not disturb or disrupt the animals."
Less than two years later, Premier began construction on the tallest, fastest and longest wooden roller coaster in Northern California. It's name belied another distinction - they called it "The Roar" and park advertisements enticed guests to "hear it!"
Today, the park now known as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is chock full of rides and exhibits. And its elephant habitat lies within a peanut's throw of a half-dozen thrill rides, including three super-fast, steel-track roller coasters.
Four years in a row, the California-based non-profit In Defense of Animals has placed Discovery Kingdom on its list of "10 Worst Zoos for Elephants," noting that "nine elephants have died at the amusement park since 1995." That's a rate of one death every 16 months among animals that, in most cases, were no more than middle-aged.
Suzanne Roy, the association's program director, said it's no surprise that so many of the park's elephants died early.
"They're living there in the midst of a noisy, crowded amusement park, in the shadow of several roller coasters, housed in this tiny zoo lot...just crammed in there," Roy said. "It's a completely unnatural environment."
Nowhere To Run
When Anderson left Misha's side in 1996, she said, she left an animal that, while often timid, could hold her own within the herd. But by 1999, that had changed.
Veterinary records obtained by In Defense, under California's Public Records Act, show that Misha - then 18 years old and more than 7,400 pounds - was known to be the frequent victim of other elephant's attacks. One her most frequent assailants was Liz, an older female of nearly 10,000 pounds.
Over several years, the records show, Misha was attacked by Liz and others, resulting in a number of deep lacerations, abrasions and some internal injuries which left her with weeks of bloody stool.
Hogle Zoo spokeswomen Holly Braithwaite said that, in Utah, animals that are bullied by their peers in a dangerous way are separated.
"The Association of Zoos and Aquariums stressed the ability to separate the animals if they are not getting along," Braithwaite said. "We don't want to have our animals hurt ... we're not going to put animals in together if they are not getting along."
And Anderson noted that the Marine World lot was exceptionally small for the number of animals it held. "You can't just throw them all in there and expect them to get along," she said. "They've got to have the ability to run away from danger."
Breaking Point
In 2001, park officials decided they would attempt to impregnate Misha to add to their herd. The process included an episiotomy - a vaginal incision that later grew infected and stayed that way for more than two months. Records show urine frequently leaked through it.
Meanwhile, the records show Misha was suffering from a large lesion on her lower left jaw, which would grow deeper, more sensitive and more infected over the next four years. At one point in the fall of 2001, vets attempting to clean the site broke off the tip of a knife in Misha's jaw.
"After many attempts at retrieval," the record states, "the blade tip was left in."
Association of Zoos and Aquariums spokesman Steve Feldman said that such medical records can only accurately be understood by a veterinarian. "You need to be qualified to understand," he said. "The care of exotic wildlife is extremely complicated and a difficult world to understand."
In March 2003, after 22 months of pregnancy - full term for an African elephant - Misha gave birth.
Like many other calves born in captivity, Misha's did not survive. Records show the attending veterinarians were able to revive the stillborn calf for only a few minutes before losing it for good.
Not quite a year later, the insemination team tried again - reopening the incision even as they continued to battle the persistent infection in Misha's jaw, which had grown to a hole eight inches deep. The second insemination didn't work.
By that time, the thrill park had added several more roller coasters and attendance was again rising. Critics, including some on Vallejo's city council, pushed the park's owners to use the opportunity to modernize their animal training methods.
In particular, they wanted the park to follow the lead of zoos across the United States that had ended the practice of "free contact," in which trainers move freely about the elephant's exhibits, coercing and disciplining animals with sticks and hooks. But the park continued that technique.
In June 2004, Misha made the news around the world when she knocked down zookeeper Patrick Chapple with her trunk, then gored him through the back and abdomen. Zoo officials said the attack was unprovoked.
Chapple survived. Misha was isolated, and remained so until April 2005, when she was packed into a crate, loaded onto a truck, and driven 700 miles to Utah.
Six Flags spokeswoman Nancy Chan said her facility was "extremely proud" of the care it provided to Misha, who Chan said "was in excellent health when she was transferred to the Hogle Zoo."
Dying Young
On nature reserves in Africa, elephants can live well into their 60s, according to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. By comparison, the oldest African elephant in an American Zoo is 48 years old - her name is Hydari, and she's lived at Utah's Hogle Zoo since 1967.
Given the zoo's success with Hydari and given Misha's relatively young age, Hogle's lead elephant keeper, Doug Tomkinson, said he expected that Misha would be part of the Utah herd for decades to come.
After all, Misha had been given an improved living situation - placed back into contact with other elephants and in a "protected contact" environment, where zookeepers do not go into the creatures' habitats. And though Hogle officials said they were aware of Misha's prior medical complications, she had experienced no significant problems since arriving in Utah.
Her attitude also seemed to have taken a turn for the better. Whatever inner turmoil had caused her to turn on a trainer a year earlier did not appear to be present in Utah.
"Misha was always a happy and playful elephant," said Holly Braithwaite, the Hogle spokeswoman. "Misha quickly became close to her keepers ... she was just a good, hard-working, caring animal."
When Misha's health began to falter last month - she was losing energy, was having trouble sleeping, wasn't eating and seemed to be in great pain - Hogle's animal staff was bewildered and concerned. As her condition grew steadily worse, the zoo's staff worked around the clock to diagnose her ailment, taking tests, consulting with experts from other parks and even using a crane to help her stand when she could not do so alone.
Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, the staff gathered to make a collective decision about whether to continue. "We felt like the only fair thing to do was to put her to sleep," said Dr. Nancy Carpenter, the zoo's lead veterinarian.
Last Goodbye
By the time she was put down, the once 7,400-pound elephant was down to 6,000 pounds. But if there are any guesses as to what caused Misha's sudden downturn, Hogle officials aren't saying.
The results of a necropsy performed on Wednesday won't likely be made public for several weeks. And lab tests could take even longer.
But Anderson isn't waiting for the results - they can't tell her what she already knows about Misha.
"Here is what you've done," Anderson said. "You've taken this animal and taught her to fear. You've put her in a tiny yard and then disciplined her when she fought back. You've put this totally social animal in isolation, denying her any social experiences and then shipped her off."
Whatever the ultimate answer to Misha's sudden death, Anderson said, to her, the big mystery is no mystery at all. "She lost her will."
This:
Misha's Sad Journey
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
She was born 27 years ago in the wilds of Africa.
By the time she was a year old, she had been ripped from her family.
Penned, chained and shipped to a noisy new world, her California keepers allowed her to roam only a few paces this way and a few paces that. She was bullied and dominated. She lost a baby. She was poked, prodded, cut and left in pain.
Misha the elephant died Tuesday on the concrete floor of a cinderblock building in a lot behind her most recent home at Utah's Hogle Zoo, some 10,000 miles from where she was born.
No one is yet is certain of what caused her death, at what could be described as "middle age" for an elephant. But one of Misha's former trainers has a strong suspicion: "She lost her will."
Out of Africa
It was the early 1980s in South Africa. Apartheid was law. Nelson Mandela was in prison. And the nation's population of elephants, which had fallen to less than 200 earlier in the century, had steadily climbed to more than 8,000, pushing against the capacity of the country's wildlife reserves.
Between 1981 and 1983, the South African government approved the killing of more than 3,200 elephants. The government also permitted the capture some of the animals - mostly juveniles, whose size and temperament made their integration into captivity easier - for transport overseas.
"The only way you could do it was to kill the mother first," said Les Schobert, a retired California zoo curator who procured a number of elephant calves in the early 1980s before growing disenchanted with the industry. "You couldn't get a baby elephant away from its mom in any other way. You had to shoot the mom and then collect the babies."
In most cases, Schobert said, the calves were still drinking their mother's milk and had to be trained to use a bottle. Many couldn't make the transition. From a quarter to a third of the calves died within four months of arriving in the United States, Schobert said. "That was the risk you ran by importing them."
Hundreds of elephants made their way to the United States in this way. Among them was Misha.
Under California Stars
At about two years old, when many elephant calves are just beginning to be weaned, Misha arrived at Marine World, Africa, U.S.A., in Redwood City, Calif., an aging theme park with animal attractions, a few low-tech rides and a popular water-skiing show.
In the summer of 1986, the park's menagerie - including performing pachyderms, tropical birds, wild cats, dolphins and killer whales - was moved to a larger campus, 60 miles north in Vallejo.
That's where elephant trainer Barbara Anderson met Misha, in 1990.
"We had 12 elephants at that time," Anderson recalled, ticking off the animals' names like a proud mother. "In particular, Tika, Tava, Misha and Malaika were all pretty tight. They were good friends."
Misha was always nervous, Anderson said, "and she was never going to be the dominant one in the herd." But Anderson said Misha also didn't let herself get picked on. It's unclear when that all changed - but park veterinary records make it clear that it did.
Anderson left the park in 1996, upset that the organization was not making better efforts to modernize its elephant training methods and habitats. "Of course," she said. "They were losing a lot of money."
Indeed, dwindling attendance had left the non-profit Marine World Foundation millions in the red. In the fall of 1997 it defaulted on its loans, which had been guaranteed by the city.
When Vallejo couldn't find a buyer for the park, it assumed ownership of the campus, buildings and more than 3,000 animals - including Misha's herd of elephants, which by that time was down to 10 animals. Promptly, the city turned control of the park over to the for-profit Premier Parks, Inc.
Living Out Loud
Premier had a plan: It would break from the park's traditional focus on animal education in order to offer its visitors more thrills. And if successful, it would exercise an option to buy the park.
At the time, Premier president Gary Story told The San Francisco Chronicle that his company had been "sensitive to add attractions which will not disturb or disrupt the animals."
Less than two years later, Premier began construction on the tallest, fastest and longest wooden roller coaster in Northern California. It's name belied another distinction - they called it "The Roar" and park advertisements enticed guests to "hear it!"
Today, the park now known as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is chock full of rides and exhibits. And its elephant habitat lies within a peanut's throw of a half-dozen thrill rides, including three super-fast, steel-track roller coasters.
Four years in a row, the California-based non-profit In Defense of Animals has placed Discovery Kingdom on its list of "10 Worst Zoos for Elephants," noting that "nine elephants have died at the amusement park since 1995." That's a rate of one death every 16 months among animals that, in most cases, were no more than middle-aged.
Suzanne Roy, the association's program director, said it's no surprise that so many of the park's elephants died early.
"They're living there in the midst of a noisy, crowded amusement park, in the shadow of several roller coasters, housed in this tiny zoo lot...just crammed in there," Roy said. "It's a completely unnatural environment."
Nowhere To Run
When Anderson left Misha's side in 1996, she said, she left an animal that, while often timid, could hold her own within the herd. But by 1999, that had changed.
Veterinary records obtained by In Defense, under California's Public Records Act, show that Misha - then 18 years old and more than 7,400 pounds - was known to be the frequent victim of other elephant's attacks. One her most frequent assailants was Liz, an older female of nearly 10,000 pounds.
Over several years, the records show, Misha was attacked by Liz and others, resulting in a number of deep lacerations, abrasions and some internal injuries which left her with weeks of bloody stool.
Hogle Zoo spokeswomen Holly Braithwaite said that, in Utah, animals that are bullied by their peers in a dangerous way are separated.
"The Association of Zoos and Aquariums stressed the ability to separate the animals if they are not getting along," Braithwaite said. "We don't want to have our animals hurt ... we're not going to put animals in together if they are not getting along."
And Anderson noted that the Marine World lot was exceptionally small for the number of animals it held. "You can't just throw them all in there and expect them to get along," she said. "They've got to have the ability to run away from danger."
Breaking Point
In 2001, park officials decided they would attempt to impregnate Misha to add to their herd. The process included an episiotomy - a vaginal incision that later grew infected and stayed that way for more than two months. Records show urine frequently leaked through it.
Meanwhile, the records show Misha was suffering from a large lesion on her lower left jaw, which would grow deeper, more sensitive and more infected over the next four years. At one point in the fall of 2001, vets attempting to clean the site broke off the tip of a knife in Misha's jaw.
"After many attempts at retrieval," the record states, "the blade tip was left in."
Association of Zoos and Aquariums spokesman Steve Feldman said that such medical records can only accurately be understood by a veterinarian. "You need to be qualified to understand," he said. "The care of exotic wildlife is extremely complicated and a difficult world to understand."
In March 2003, after 22 months of pregnancy - full term for an African elephant - Misha gave birth.
Like many other calves born in captivity, Misha's did not survive. Records show the attending veterinarians were able to revive the stillborn calf for only a few minutes before losing it for good.
Not quite a year later, the insemination team tried again - reopening the incision even as they continued to battle the persistent infection in Misha's jaw, which had grown to a hole eight inches deep. The second insemination didn't work.
By that time, the thrill park had added several more roller coasters and attendance was again rising. Critics, including some on Vallejo's city council, pushed the park's owners to use the opportunity to modernize their animal training methods.
In particular, they wanted the park to follow the lead of zoos across the United States that had ended the practice of "free contact," in which trainers move freely about the elephant's exhibits, coercing and disciplining animals with sticks and hooks. But the park continued that technique.
In June 2004, Misha made the news around the world when she knocked down zookeeper Patrick Chapple with her trunk, then gored him through the back and abdomen. Zoo officials said the attack was unprovoked.
Chapple survived. Misha was isolated, and remained so until April 2005, when she was packed into a crate, loaded onto a truck, and driven 700 miles to Utah.
Six Flags spokeswoman Nancy Chan said her facility was "extremely proud" of the care it provided to Misha, who Chan said "was in excellent health when she was transferred to the Hogle Zoo."
Dying Young
On nature reserves in Africa, elephants can live well into their 60s, according to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. By comparison, the oldest African elephant in an American Zoo is 48 years old - her name is Hydari, and she's lived at Utah's Hogle Zoo since 1967.
Given the zoo's success with Hydari and given Misha's relatively young age, Hogle's lead elephant keeper, Doug Tomkinson, said he expected that Misha would be part of the Utah herd for decades to come.
After all, Misha had been given an improved living situation - placed back into contact with other elephants and in a "protected contact" environment, where zookeepers do not go into the creatures' habitats. And though Hogle officials said they were aware of Misha's prior medical complications, she had experienced no significant problems since arriving in Utah.
Her attitude also seemed to have taken a turn for the better. Whatever inner turmoil had caused her to turn on a trainer a year earlier did not appear to be present in Utah.
"Misha was always a happy and playful elephant," said Holly Braithwaite, the Hogle spokeswoman. "Misha quickly became close to her keepers ... she was just a good, hard-working, caring animal."
When Misha's health began to falter last month - she was losing energy, was having trouble sleeping, wasn't eating and seemed to be in great pain - Hogle's animal staff was bewildered and concerned. As her condition grew steadily worse, the zoo's staff worked around the clock to diagnose her ailment, taking tests, consulting with experts from other parks and even using a crane to help her stand when she could not do so alone.
Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, the staff gathered to make a collective decision about whether to continue. "We felt like the only fair thing to do was to put her to sleep," said Dr. Nancy Carpenter, the zoo's lead veterinarian.
Last Goodbye
By the time she was put down, the once 7,400-pound elephant was down to 6,000 pounds. But if there are any guesses as to what caused Misha's sudden downturn, Hogle officials aren't saying.
The results of a necropsy performed on Wednesday won't likely be made public for several weeks. And lab tests could take even longer.
But Anderson isn't waiting for the results - they can't tell her what she already knows about Misha.
"Here is what you've done," Anderson said. "You've taken this animal and taught her to fear. You've put her in a tiny yard and then disciplined her when she fought back. You've put this totally social animal in isolation, denying her any social experiences and then shipped her off."
Whatever the ultimate answer to Misha's sudden death, Anderson said, to her, the big mystery is no mystery at all. "She lost her will."
If there is a God (and sometimes when I think of the way we treat one another, I'm convinced there simply isn't) I'm saddened to think of how She must feel about the way we treat the rest of Her creations.
Be good to this world. To every sparrow. To every elephant. Because if there is a God (and sometimes when I look into your eyes, I'm persuaded that there must be) I'm certain that is what She wants.
Love,
dad
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
WARMING THINGS UP
Dear Spike:
The mercury tipped above 80 yesterday, which was a little bit strange because we hadn't even had a 70-degree day yet this Spring.
And then today we had a blizzard, which isn't strange at all for Salt Lake City in mid-April, except for the fact that YESTERDAY IT WAS FLIPPIN' EIGHTY DEGREES OUTSIDE!
If there's one thing you can count on not counting on in this world, it's the weather. And that's a real nice thing, because it always gives you something to talk about with people on the bus, in line at the grocery store or while stuck in an elevator.
"Some weather we're having. . . " is all you've got to say. And with those four words — BAM-O! — the ice is broken.
Some folks say everything is part of God's plan. If that's true, I'll bet She created the weather just to get us all talking. And if that's the case... well... way to go God.
The world can be a cold enough place without us being cold to one another. The weather is a pretty good place to start warming things up. Where things go from there is up to you.
Love,
dad
The mercury tipped above 80 yesterday, which was a little bit strange because we hadn't even had a 70-degree day yet this Spring.
And then today we had a blizzard, which isn't strange at all for Salt Lake City in mid-April, except for the fact that YESTERDAY IT WAS FLIPPIN' EIGHTY DEGREES OUTSIDE!
If there's one thing you can count on not counting on in this world, it's the weather. And that's a real nice thing, because it always gives you something to talk about with people on the bus, in line at the grocery store or while stuck in an elevator.
"Some weather we're having. . . " is all you've got to say. And with those four words — BAM-O! — the ice is broken.
Some folks say everything is part of God's plan. If that's true, I'll bet She created the weather just to get us all talking. And if that's the case... well... way to go God.
The world can be a cold enough place without us being cold to one another. The weather is a pretty good place to start warming things up. Where things go from there is up to you.
Love,
dad
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
SHE MIGHT BE
Dear Spike:
If there is a God, several religious traditions tell us, she created us in Her image.
Some folks take that to mean we have a lot to live up to. But I’ve always kind of figured it means God must be just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.
But sometimes, I think, God know must know when my opinion of mankind — and thus, of Her — has sunk to a new low. Because whenever I’m ready to write off mankind and God alike as hopeless failures, I see a glimpse of what we could be.
And in a glimpse of a glimpse, I see what She might be.
A few weeks ago, I happened to be in your mother’s classroom when the school librarian came in to schedule a time for the kindergartners to visit the library for the annual book fair.
I’ll bet you’ll love the book fair. I certainly did when I was a child. It was a traveling bookstore — a chance to touch and hold a shiny new book, to leaf through its pages (or even take a peek at the end) before shelling out a few bucks to make it mine.
But something was instantly clear to me as I listened to your mother work out a time to bring her class to the fair. And it almost broke my heart.
Most of your mom’s students can’t even afford to buy a school lunch. And so I doubted any of them were going to have the money to purchase a book at the fair. Instead, I feared, they would be paraded in front of a bunch of great books — and then told that, unless they had money — they wouldn’t be allowed to take one home.
When the librarian left, I asked your mom how many of her students would be able to buy a book.
“Maybe two or three,” she sighed.
“And how many do you think have ever received a brand new book of their own?” I asked.
“Maybe two or three,” she sighed again.
As a matter of fact, she lamented, a lot of her students probably didn’t even have a single book, new or used, at home, except maybe for the ones they borrowed from the school library.
A few days ago, I sent an e-mail to everyone I work with at the newspaper, explaining that I was going to set out a coffee can in hopes of collecting enough money to let every kid in your mom’s class pick out a brand new book of their own at the fair. It was probably a violation of workplace protocol, but I thought it would be funny if they tried to fire me for collecting money to buy books for kids.
Last night I counted the money. There was enough for every kid in your mom’s class to buy a book.
And for every kid in the kindergarten class down the hall.
And for every kid in the class next to that.
And for every kid in the class next to that.
This morning, every single kindergarten student at your mom’s school went to the book fair and picked out a book of their very own, all thanks to a bunch of cynical, cold-blooded journalists.
That was plenty enough to make my day. And it did wonders to restore my faith in humanity.
But I'm not sure that God's all that good at leaving well enough alone.
This afternoon, I spoke to an incredible man named Ahmed Shah Karimi. Shah, as folks call him, lives in Concord — just about 45 minutes up Interstate 680 from where your grandparents live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A few years back, Shah served as an interpreter for a National Guard unit from Utah that I have been following. And that's how I happened to be speaking to him today.
Born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, Shah attended university in India. Among his classmates was a young political science student named Hamid Karzai. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Shah went to the United States and took a job driving limousines in New York City. Karzai returned to Afghanistan, where he helped raise money to fight against the Russian occupation.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 changed both men’s lives forever. Karzai — who had been exciled to Pakistan during the Taliban regime's rule — was installed as Afghanistan’s president following the U.S. invasion. Shah, who was picking up a client near the World Trade Center when the first hijacked airplane crashed, also found himself back in his native land — working for the U.S. military.
One day, Shah told me, he took an afternoon off to go into Kabul.
“It was my first time back in the city,” he said. “And when I got out of the taxi, I looked around and saw so many little boys, just wandering around on the street. I came into a shop and I stopped to talk with people and they told me ‘yes, these children are orphans. They have no fathers. No parents.”
There are 40,000 orphans living on the streets of Kabul. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the city’s orphanages can only shelter about 2,000.
As the story is told by Shah's friends, the intrepid interpreter pretty much made a B-line to Karzai's presidential palace, emerging from a meeting with his old classmate with a 50-acre land grant on the outskirts of Kabul and a plan to build the nation's largest orphanage and school.
Shah didn’t know anything about fundraising, or building, or managing an orphanage. But he knew what he had to do.
“As a human being I had to act,” he said. He’s now well on his way to raising the funds to move his family back to Afghanistan and begin construction on his project.
Maybe there is a God. And maybe She created us in Her image. And maybe She is just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.
But maybe, also, we have a lot to live up to.
If only in a glimpse of a glimpse, I hope you see Her that way.
Love,
dad
If there is a God, several religious traditions tell us, she created us in Her image.
Some folks take that to mean we have a lot to live up to. But I’ve always kind of figured it means God must be just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.
But sometimes, I think, God know must know when my opinion of mankind — and thus, of Her — has sunk to a new low. Because whenever I’m ready to write off mankind and God alike as hopeless failures, I see a glimpse of what we could be.
And in a glimpse of a glimpse, I see what She might be.
A few weeks ago, I happened to be in your mother’s classroom when the school librarian came in to schedule a time for the kindergartners to visit the library for the annual book fair.
I’ll bet you’ll love the book fair. I certainly did when I was a child. It was a traveling bookstore — a chance to touch and hold a shiny new book, to leaf through its pages (or even take a peek at the end) before shelling out a few bucks to make it mine.
But something was instantly clear to me as I listened to your mother work out a time to bring her class to the fair. And it almost broke my heart.
Most of your mom’s students can’t even afford to buy a school lunch. And so I doubted any of them were going to have the money to purchase a book at the fair. Instead, I feared, they would be paraded in front of a bunch of great books — and then told that, unless they had money — they wouldn’t be allowed to take one home.
When the librarian left, I asked your mom how many of her students would be able to buy a book.
“Maybe two or three,” she sighed.
“And how many do you think have ever received a brand new book of their own?” I asked.
“Maybe two or three,” she sighed again.
As a matter of fact, she lamented, a lot of her students probably didn’t even have a single book, new or used, at home, except maybe for the ones they borrowed from the school library.
A few days ago, I sent an e-mail to everyone I work with at the newspaper, explaining that I was going to set out a coffee can in hopes of collecting enough money to let every kid in your mom’s class pick out a brand new book of their own at the fair. It was probably a violation of workplace protocol, but I thought it would be funny if they tried to fire me for collecting money to buy books for kids.
Last night I counted the money. There was enough for every kid in your mom’s class to buy a book.
And for every kid in the kindergarten class down the hall.
And for every kid in the class next to that.
And for every kid in the class next to that.
This morning, every single kindergarten student at your mom’s school went to the book fair and picked out a book of their very own, all thanks to a bunch of cynical, cold-blooded journalists.
That was plenty enough to make my day. And it did wonders to restore my faith in humanity.
But I'm not sure that God's all that good at leaving well enough alone.
This afternoon, I spoke to an incredible man named Ahmed Shah Karimi. Shah, as folks call him, lives in Concord — just about 45 minutes up Interstate 680 from where your grandparents live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A few years back, Shah served as an interpreter for a National Guard unit from Utah that I have been following. And that's how I happened to be speaking to him today.
Born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, Shah attended university in India. Among his classmates was a young political science student named Hamid Karzai. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Shah went to the United States and took a job driving limousines in New York City. Karzai returned to Afghanistan, where he helped raise money to fight against the Russian occupation.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 changed both men’s lives forever. Karzai — who had been exciled to Pakistan during the Taliban regime's rule — was installed as Afghanistan’s president following the U.S. invasion. Shah, who was picking up a client near the World Trade Center when the first hijacked airplane crashed, also found himself back in his native land — working for the U.S. military.
One day, Shah told me, he took an afternoon off to go into Kabul.
“It was my first time back in the city,” he said. “And when I got out of the taxi, I looked around and saw so many little boys, just wandering around on the street. I came into a shop and I stopped to talk with people and they told me ‘yes, these children are orphans. They have no fathers. No parents.”
There are 40,000 orphans living on the streets of Kabul. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the city’s orphanages can only shelter about 2,000.
As the story is told by Shah's friends, the intrepid interpreter pretty much made a B-line to Karzai's presidential palace, emerging from a meeting with his old classmate with a 50-acre land grant on the outskirts of Kabul and a plan to build the nation's largest orphanage and school.
Shah didn’t know anything about fundraising, or building, or managing an orphanage. But he knew what he had to do.
“As a human being I had to act,” he said. He’s now well on his way to raising the funds to move his family back to Afghanistan and begin construction on his project.
Maybe there is a God. And maybe She created us in Her image. And maybe She is just as fallible, dirty, ugly, greedy, jealous, hateful and violent as we are.
But maybe, also, we have a lot to live up to.
If only in a glimpse of a glimpse, I hope you see Her that way.
Love,
dad
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
TALKING TO HER
Dear Spike:
I watched a man pray to God for a good poker hand, last night.
"Come on Lord,” he cried as he waited for the dealer to act during the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event. “You have a purpose for me today. I will glorify your name Lord, I will glorify your name. With the money I make I will glorify your name.”
If there is a God, and I choose to believe there is, I’d like to think she’s above this sort of obscene deal making.
Then again, gamblevangelist Jerry Yang did walk away from that table with $8.25 million. So at very least, we know that God is tolerant of buffoons.
If you choose to believe in God – and in our family, that is a choice, rather than a directive — I hope you’ll have an easier time talking to her than I have had.
I simply never know what to say. In a universe equally grand in majesty and tragedy, my praises and concerns have always seemed inconsequential. So I have little advice on how to pray, save this:
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the churches and on the street corners... When you pray, go into your room and close the door.”
I didn’t come up with that, by the way. It came from Jesus Christ. It’s what he said right before he taught his followers the Pater Noster — the Lord’s Prayer.
You might think that a Christian’s $8.25 million effort to glorify God should begin with respecting Christ’s strikingly simple and completely unambiguous set of instructions on prayer, but our species is particularly bad at practicing what has been preached.
And when our worldly self interests contradict what we believe God wants, we don’t just throw God out. We subjugate her.
I’m not beyond the ability to believe that God might answer a prayer or two, here and there. But on her to-do list, I choose to believe that famine, genocide and pandemic disease are a little closer to the top than poker hands, football games and pay raises.
God does not care if Jerry Yang wins at poker, no matter what measly and insulting promise he’s made about the money.
She doesn’t root for the Broncos. She doesn’t care whether Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record. And she’s probably bored by NASCAR, too.
She doesn’t control traffic on the interstate. She doesn’t keep the stock market from crashing. And with all due respect to our current president, who apparently believes the phone in his office rings directly to the one in her office, she doesn’t take sides in a war (much less choose to start one.)
Oh, you can pray to her for any of those things. And while you’re at it, go ahead and promise to glorify her name. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well do it while standing on a street corner.
At least then you might have someone to listen to you. Because she won't be.
Love,
dad
I watched a man pray to God for a good poker hand, last night.
"Come on Lord,” he cried as he waited for the dealer to act during the final table of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event. “You have a purpose for me today. I will glorify your name Lord, I will glorify your name. With the money I make I will glorify your name.”
If there is a God, and I choose to believe there is, I’d like to think she’s above this sort of obscene deal making.
Then again, gamblevangelist Jerry Yang did walk away from that table with $8.25 million. So at very least, we know that God is tolerant of buffoons.
If you choose to believe in God – and in our family, that is a choice, rather than a directive — I hope you’ll have an easier time talking to her than I have had.
I simply never know what to say. In a universe equally grand in majesty and tragedy, my praises and concerns have always seemed inconsequential. So I have little advice on how to pray, save this:
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the churches and on the street corners... When you pray, go into your room and close the door.”
I didn’t come up with that, by the way. It came from Jesus Christ. It’s what he said right before he taught his followers the Pater Noster — the Lord’s Prayer.
You might think that a Christian’s $8.25 million effort to glorify God should begin with respecting Christ’s strikingly simple and completely unambiguous set of instructions on prayer, but our species is particularly bad at practicing what has been preached.
And when our worldly self interests contradict what we believe God wants, we don’t just throw God out. We subjugate her.
I’m not beyond the ability to believe that God might answer a prayer or two, here and there. But on her to-do list, I choose to believe that famine, genocide and pandemic disease are a little closer to the top than poker hands, football games and pay raises.
God does not care if Jerry Yang wins at poker, no matter what measly and insulting promise he’s made about the money.
She doesn’t root for the Broncos. She doesn’t care whether Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s home run record. And she’s probably bored by NASCAR, too.
She doesn’t control traffic on the interstate. She doesn’t keep the stock market from crashing. And with all due respect to our current president, who apparently believes the phone in his office rings directly to the one in her office, she doesn’t take sides in a war (much less choose to start one.)
Oh, you can pray to her for any of those things. And while you’re at it, go ahead and promise to glorify her name. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well do it while standing on a street corner.
At least then you might have someone to listen to you. Because she won't be.
Love,
dad
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