Belief is illogical and powerful

The events of the past two weeks seem to scream this with the full force of "bloody murder." My initial response to each of the recent shootings was sadness and shock. My emotions triggered my confusion and as usual I stared at the ugliness in the hope of understanding its motivation.

Some friends admonished my interest in the sub-text of each murderous event as an unhealthy urge to see conspiracy in the craziness of lone-wolf extremism. Their ability to reconcile these murders as random acts of violence did not and does not satisfy me. I see within the isolated incidents a common mindset. Each psycho-drama's central figures were actors who held as scripture a system of belief honed and hardened through the communal honor of its worship.

I don't believe as my friends seem to believe that the shooter in Arkansas, Dr. Tiller's murderer, or the latest in a long-line of Holocaust deniers were egregious examples of tangential thinking. To me, they were perfect examples of how belief forms faith and conspires against reason to inspire destruction. It seems to me my friends' dismissal of the recent killings as some mad "Catcher in the Rye" theology ignores the calcified and widely held ideologies motivating each action.

Voltaire said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

What do you believe? What atrocities does this belief allow you to dismiss, contemplate or commit?

Does your belief in the necessity of religious respect compel you to argue Islam as a "religion of peace" and the shooter in Arkansas as a wild contradiction to this theology or, do you like Bat Y'eor in his book "Islam and Dhimmitude" see that,

" . . . the ideology of jihad was formulated by Muslim theologians from the eighth century onward. It separates humanity into two hostile blocks — the community of Muslims, and the infidels. According to this ideology, Allah commands the Muslims to conquer the whole world in order to apply Koranic laws. Hence, they have to wage a perpetual war against the infidels who refuse to submit. Its principle is based on the inequality between the community of Allah and the infidels. The first is a superior group, whose mission it is to rule the world. The second must submit."

Are you like Bill O'Reilly who viewed the subset of the 1% all abortions Dr. Tiller enacted as a murderous rampage fueled by profit or do you see the late Doctor's work as necessary medical procedure moderated by well argued law?

What are your views on America's heritage?

I don't want to equate the respect for belief or the dismissal of the recent horrendous acts as equal to the acts themselves but, I do see the acts of each killer as a logical action of their beliefs.

The willingness of those who would like to dismiss these acts as craziness seems to me like a weak immunization against the viral potential found in pre-suppositional beliefs. It seems like just another absurdity which will inspire inevitable atrocity.

I don't see myself as immune to atrocity born from absurdities I might hold as belief. I don't see myself exempt from the craziness the recent killings created. I don't see these killers as "lone wolfs" separating from the pack at left or right angles but, instead see them as examples of ideological fitness who sprint to the head of the pack and, in their commitment to the pack, separate themselves as the alpha member. I see myself as willing as anybody to commit atrocities for the sake of belief.

Therefore belief to me is powerful and it is dangerous because it allows us to embrace "knowing" absent of doubt. And in this knowledge we dismiss alternate possible theories of reality as craziness.

I am reading an interesting series by Valerie Tarico on Christian belief through a cognitive lens. My interest in the subject is fueled by the realization of how long-held Christian beliefs I claimed no longer work for me. I had to face the atrocities (akin to dhimmitude) I argued for against my homosexual friends who look for equality under the law. My Christian passion demanded I see their identity as sin and therefore same-sex marriage as a capital crime demanding the substitutional death sentence of Jesus Christ. My knowledge of who my gay friends are revealed to me the absurdity of my belief and the atrocious implications it inspired. My belief unraveled because new evidence introduced doubt. This doubt kept me from taking further action which would demonize my fellow humans for the sake of my belief.

Tarico argues that reason and logic are opposed to belief because,

" . . . belief is not bound to regular standards of evidence and logic. It is not about logic and it is not obliged to follow logic. Arguments with believers start from a false premise—that the believer is bound by the rules of debate rather than being bound by the belief itself. The freethinker assumes that the believer is free to concede; but this is rarely true. At best the bits of logic or evidence put forth in an argument go into the hopper with a whole host of other factors."

What beliefs are you bound by? Do they argue against evidence? How extreme would you become in the fulfillment of them?

Take an outsider test and find a new idea

What do you believe? What beliefs do you reject? Are you willing to address your certainties with skepticism as a means of testing your certainty?

Are you willing to get back to your childhood and approach the big wide world with one question, "why?"

John Loftus challenges true believers to take an Outsider's Test of Faith at his website "Debunking Christianity". He says

"The outsider test . . . challenges believers to examine the social and cultural conditions of how they came to adopt their particular religious faith in the first place. That is, believers must ask themselves who or what influenced them and what the actual reasons were for adopting their faith in its earliest stages. "

I'm finding this test fruitful.

It seems taking an Outsider Test can keep one from inadvertently co-signing someone else's BS.

Loftus' challenge is targeted to true believing evangelical Christians but, I think the practice could be applicable to any impassioned ideology. It's a great way to twist your noggin and invite humility. The Outsider Test demands one to examine their control beliefs and humbly admit (as Loftus suggests) the truth Voltaire stated, "Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their time.”

I work in the idea industry so, something that helps me recognize my lack of novelty can be a useful creative filter.

What ideology do you hold dear? What would happen if you asked yourself why these things are important and/or superior?

You might not have the comfort of your control beliefs but you might just find a new idea.

Some weapons in the battle against confusion

Before I begin publicly wrestling my accumulated bad ideas, I want to share with you some resources I've encountered recently that are proving to be weapons in the battle against confusion.  These have helped me cut through what I've discovered to be flimsy conviction and have evolved my certainty towards healthy skepticism.  I recommend them to you.  If you are familiar with any of these I'd love to hear your comments.  

Also, please recommend to me what you're getting into.  I'd love to check out what excites you.  This list includes a ton of theological sources.  My faith is the most recent source of confusion so, if you are interested in themes of god and/or apostasy then you might dig this list.  Enjoy.

The writer's almanac podcast. This is a good five-minute bolt of literary history and daily poetry which will put any thinker's personal frustrations regarding the futility of their own life within the context of the futility of the lives of great writers.  When I come to realize that history's great thinkers were not exempt from self-loathing, confusion, and anxiety I understand

that my own existential angst is not evidence of my stupidity.  It is also great to listen to Garrison Keillor read poetry just before I run to catch the bus.  I selfishly entertain his sign off as a personal encouragement, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

The planet money blog and podcast.  For all of us wondering how the hell we got to where we are, this is a great non-partisan resource that is committed to communicating our shared financial pain in human terms.  If you are like me and sick of your leftist friends cheering on a new age of the proletariat while your right-wing friends blame our current circumstances on things like the CRA then you will enjoy this show and blog.  If you are a loud-mouth who likes to hold tight to an ideological point of view because you enjoy feeling the comfort of presuming you are morally superior then you will probably hate the information these guys share.  I suggest starting with the podcast on bad banks and then subscribing to the show through i-Tunes.  Or, if you want to remain blissfully ignorant you can retreat to the rationale that our current economic circumstances are, "All Bush's fault," and/or "Obama is a fascist socialist; look at my tea-bag."

The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe.  If you identify with either of the caricatures I describe above then you will hate this book but, if you enjoy having your certainty challenged then you will find this read exciting and scary.  Strauss and Howe provide a system of understanding history that uses clinical-historical comparison and evidence-based analysis to posit the notion that time is non-linear. Rather it is a circular pattern that follows a seasonal cycle driven by the relationship living generations have with one another.  We move through social seasons which add up to a societal year.  Each season mirrors the natural seasons in possibility and mood and lasts every 20 years with a full societal year adding up to a "long-life" or approximately 80 years.  What season are we entering?  Well do the math for yourself but about 80 years ago we were facing a financial crisis due to over-exuberance and the misuse of leverage.  We entered a social winter that led to America moving from an isolated republic to an international super-power.  The only thing I hope that defeats the prophecies in this theory is that social winter turns to social spring with the advent of total war.  The last two fourth turnings didn't avoid it (WWII, The American Civil War) but I hope for all of our sakes our current one does.

Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman will help all my Evangelical Christian friends realize that claims to inerrant scripture can reasonably be considered attestations to oxymoronic thinking.  Mr. Ehrman is a former evangelical who attended Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, and Princeton Theologically seminary and now claims "happy agnosticism" due to the realities found in a clincial-historical reading of scripture.  His thesis came along right about the time I have wrestled doubts with my own faith due to the certainty true believers claim that a loving God allows horrible suffering as a means to proclaim His glory.  

Another one by Mr. Ehrman and a read that helped me understand that my anger towards suffering need not be dismissed as shameful sin or evidence of my disobedience towards God.  A seminarian friend recently posited the reason for current and past martyrdom can be explained in a salient quote by Tertulian, one of the early church fathers, which reads, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."  If you feel like me, that this idea is one full of moral pretense to rationalize human suffering for the sake of mystical status then, "God's Problem" will arm you with biblical fact to call "BS" on similar apologetics.  A good read.

The Reasonable Faith site of Dr. William Lane Craig.  This is an ironic citation because it was recommended as a source to quiet the doubts I have had recently but became one to enflame them.  Dr. Craig is a noted Christian Apologist and I recommend you read his debates.  If you are like me and love words you will enjoy his vocabulary and might even discover interesting thinkers debating him (how I came to know Dr. Erhman in fact).  But, if you are like me, and also fear too much ideological certainty driven by subjective experience, then you will find Dr. Craig's postulations that historical methodology as unnecessary in assessing the historicity of the resurrection to be quite frightening.  If you are a true believer then I challenge you to put Dr. Craig's arguments to the test of Occam's Razor and ask yourself if his perspective purports truth or is assumptive rhetoric.

I held the opinion that atheists were morally inferior to Christians.  After reading Mr. Harris' book I no longer hold that belief.  This is a quick and cogent read to recognize that claims to moral superiority as evidenced by the "Jesus Prayer" are morally and intellectually pretentious.  True Believers should read this and answer the arguments within.  It will probably strengthen your faith or, if you are like me, help you drop preconceived opinions as harmful superstition.  If the culture wars are to end then all Americans will need to embrace the liberty ensured by our common secular protections where non-establishment of religion is the only way religious freedom and personal liberty can coexist.

The Language of God by Francis Collins is a stimulating read.  It provides a look at the latest scientific frontiers from the perspective of a bible-believing Christian who also happens to have been a leader on the Human Genome Project.  His description of the scientific method and why it makes things like "Intelligent Design" nothing more than a fear-based polemic are galvanizing.  It is nice to read a man of faith embrace reason and science.  His Christian view does not offer a definitive argument for a Judeo-Christian God and at most can only ask for ecumenical civility but, that perspective is helpful to recognize our desire for belief can be respected as part of what makes us human.  His appendix on bioethics is a great primer to what will surely be the central issue in healthcare and human services as genomics leads to personalized medicine.

That's all for now.  My new posts will probably reference these sources as well as many others.  I wish you peace and as Garrison Keillor says, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

Why I write this blog

I've been told by a friend that if you have a blog it should be committed to two things.  The first is a specific and easy to understand mission and the second would be short entries in support of that mission.

I have failed on both accounts.

My mission has been unclear and my entries rather long.

So consider this post a re-set and an attempt to gain interest from you in my writing with a clear perspective within a short post.

Why am I writing this blog?  I was a distracted and bad student in high school which has led me in adulthood to feel confused while believing I am stupid.  I've often accepted bad advice as truth because it was dressed up within powerful rhetoric.  I thought, What the hell, if someone said something loud enough it was probably true because who am I to question that.  I found my unexamined life has allowed me to live within the safety of a mediocre mind.  But in the context of our current crazy times I've come to realize that being a perpetual C student may not ask much but it can cost a whole hell of a lot.  

I have come to realize that I don't really believe what I think I know so I've felt a need to examine and re-examine many different ideas now because my confusion can't be calmed with a retreat to stupidity.

This blog is an attempt for me to get to know my own mind so I can resolve confusion. 

There is a Buddhist saying, "If you want enlightenment, don't seek the truth, just drop all of your opinions." 

This therefore is a blog that will describe the new possibilities one can find by honestly admitting confusion and dropping ideas that empower mediocre thinking.  

It will not be comfortable for me and I hope it will be less so for you.  If I do this well then I expect many of you to be pissed off. 

Enjoy.

Faith, Doubt and Daily Dozens

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go." (T. Roethke "The Waking")

I love the villanelle form and I especially love Theodore Roethke's villanelle, "The Waking".  The villanelle's economic cadence and the repetition reminds me of a good garage-rock song.  

The poet builds his thought with metrical punch and repeats the theme in repetitive counter punch.  

Rodney Dangerfield's dramatic self-actualization in "Back to School" was my first introduction to the villanelle when he found redemption inside Dylan Thomas' ode to on-coming death, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."  

The Villanelle was considered by Medieval audiences to be a "country song" so my white trash heritage holds well inside my appreciation and Mr. Dangerfield's performance seems aesthetically perfect.  

It seems right the philosopher of low self-esteem ("I don't get no respect") should be troubadour to a form that wrestles with itself for insight.  

Roethke's pulitzer came from his collection that took its title from his villanelle.  Roethke suffered depression and saw the suicide of his uncle the same year his father died of cancer.  He was 15.  His villanelle speaks to the possibility of enlightenment one may find in existential examination of God's creation.  His repetitive song sings to experience and anticipatory awareness.  "God bless the ground!  I shall walk softly there.  And learn by going where I have to go."

I have always felt an inclination towards faith in Roethke's poem.  His naturalistic existentialism has mirrored my own seeking.

The last week has been one considering the power of faith and its shadow, doubt.  The occasion of the twin bicentennial births of Darwin and Lincoln have made me wind and rewind my own conviction.  I've been wresting with rhyme and refrain like a dizzy villanelle.  It's interesting that in Darwin and Lincoln you have a Janus composite with a coincidental birthday.  It's like God is a hip ironic comic.  

In one you have a man who in the midst of tranquility on the Galapagos Islands uncovered an idea that so frightened him and disrupted his childhood theology that he stood silent with it for 15 years and in the other you have a man whose skeptical faith was crystalized by brutality in such a way to reaffirm our proclamation as humans.  

Darwin's peaceful observations disrupted his own heart and made him hated by his faith and Lincoln's brutal times articulated a foundation for peaceful brotherhood which in turn secured for him a deeper faith.  They are a single-headed twin with fixed stares of curiosity and humility. 

I'm a Christian and am a member of the Evangelical Free Church.  One of the reasons I like my faith is because of the traditional call to obedience old time "e-free" members would share when they would ask, "How's your walk brother?  How's your walk sister?"  It is an active denomination that seeks personal Gospel life application.  

The church I attend is committed to expository preaching.  We pick a book of the bible and we read through it as a congregation uncovering its historical and applicable themes.  Last year was spent in the Book of Exodus. The liberation story was fascinating and interesting; the tabernacle's blueprint not so much.  

This year we're in the book of Acts.  This book is a narrative of the 1st century Christians and their spiritual existence.  We spoke recently of the possibility that, for some, Christianity is a phase.  This theme spilled into the small group bible study my wife and I attend and we shared stories of friends who have rejected their faith

I'm not surprised by the rejection many people have.  I haven't always been a believer and still doubt if I truly am one of "the elect" - the Calvinistic concept of a select group of folks destined for Heaven (but of course I think Calvinists uptight pilgrims inclined more to their head then to their fellows' aching hearts.  And for me aching hearts matter more than theological rubrics.)  

I'm a Christian because it is compelling for me to believe of God disrupting the pattern of religious authority by dying a criminal's death and as Bob Dylan said, "You're gonna have to serve somebody . . ."  

But I have been an inconsistent believer.  I've identified in my life as a Roman Catholic, Agnostic, Atheist, Nihilist, Nazarene, Atheist again, Born Again, Atheist again, Unitarian, Buddhist, Atheist again, and finally (for the last six years) a Christian.  I at first called myself a follower of Jesus Christ, then a believer and finally a simple Christian.  

I resisted the title Christian because I thought it would carry a cultural implication that I only vote Republican and love Nascar.  Neither group appeals to me and I didn't want to mislead people.  But I've surrendered to the fact that I am a Christian and find peace in that knowledge.  The label works for me because it summarizes the essence of my faith in the person of Jesus Christ rather than in the person of Chuck O'Connor.  

I have of course been told by an atheist friend that I can't be a Christian because I'm too curious and have been told by a former Christian mentor that I am no longer a Christian because I voted for Barack Obama.  

But in my heart I am a Christian. 

The reason for my conviction is in my doubt and the balm Christ gives me inside my confusion.  One of my favorite passages of scripture is Matthew 6:34-37.  I quote from the contemporary translation, "The Message" "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever things come up when the time comes."  It's an answer to my doubt and motivates patience, humility and awareness.  

The Indian born Jesuit trained priest and therapist Anthony deMello said that spirituality is not subtle, sentimental or dreamy.  He writes in his book Awareness that, "Spirituality means waking up.  Most people, even though they don't know it are asleep.  They're born asleep, the live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up.  They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence . . . all is well . . . though everything is a mess, all is well.  Strange paradox, to be sure.  But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep.  They are having a nightmare."

I am often still asleep.  I worry about my job, will Jackie and I have children, will they be healthy, will tax cuts stimulate the economy or should we be Keynesian?  I doubt, but I trust Christ's caution against worry.  

One of the practices that has become a habit is that upon waking I spend some quiet time with my journal and devotional books.  After an hour I write down 12 things for which I am grateful.  I then email this list to about 60 people as near as my wife and as far away as Australia.  I then in turn receive lists from about 6 to 8 people. Anyone who has worked in direct mail would say a 10%+ return rate is pretty good.  I start my day with gratitude and leaven my doubt with an appreciation for what I have. My heart aches with the appreciation I find in other's gratitude. Today's list consisted of the following:

1. A healthy breakfast

2. A home I can afford and share with my best friend, my wife

3. Work-out clothes I can put on and wear to the gym today

4. A gym membership I can afford

5. A healthy body that allows exercise

6. An I-pod that holds my music

7. "Genius" software on my I-pod that allows me to be surprised by my own music

8. Simple pleasures

9. The enjoyment of simplicity

10. A holiday with scheduled rest

11. John Hawkinson - one of my oldest friends is in town and we have plans to see each other tonight

12. The wisdom of stillness

Let me know if you would like me to share my gratitude with you.  I'll put your email on my routing list.  I'd love to wake slowly with you and mingle our stories of doubt,faith and gratitude.  

"This shaking keeps me steady.  I should know.

What falls away is always.  And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go."

Facebook Melancholia

FaceBook Melancholia: (DSM III 296.32 2.0) A mood disorder triggered within one who opts into the Facebook community. The mechanism of disease is activated when one realizes the digital immediacy offered by Facebook is inconsistent with the physical/emotional intimacy long-lost friendships once promised. This disorder causes mixed feelings of joy, sadness, regret and gratitude. Clinical trials -have shown that some Facebook-Melancholia-sufferers risk an onset of depression but elevated depressive symptoms associated with Facebook Melancholia are usually resigned to specific ethnicities, most notably the Irish.

I am suffering Facebook Melancholia.

The damn social network triggers off a hell of unintended memories.

Memories are dangerous and lively things, as my friend Paul Luikart noted.  He cites, in his blog, Stephen Hawking's concept Background Radiation, "a kind of radiation that's ever-present out there in the blackness of space . . . left over from the big bang," and what kind of individual background radiation we all have. What kind of memories hang behind the lives we live?

My Facebook Melancholia creates critical exposure to my Background Radiation.

Jason Stamp friended me yesterday. He and I performed Pinocchio together during Christmas Break at MSU in East Lansing, 1989.

How did 20 years happen?

A social network back then was a case of Little Kings shared with friendly theatre freaks.

I try to tell myself that it's just the endless Chicago Winter and the fact that 30 degrees (F) feels like spring but I know it's something else.

How did twenty years happen?

The stubborn Midwest cold that ignores my gripes is the same bitterness Greg Mills and I would grumble about when we woke at 7 AM in the Bush I era to make our Pinnocchio call time at the Fairchild Theatre. We would crunch through the frozen snow towards the basement studio where Greg would play Tony one of the bad kids taken away to become a donkey by Jason Stamp's Coach-master and I played Spruce the Wood-Elf - a conceit invented by John Baldwin our director to allow for Pinocchio's magical growing nose.

We trudged hung-over towards the theatre where 4 shows full of grade-school kids would be waiting. We urged each other on with the promise of hot coffee and donuts. We would grunt like caveman weathering a glacial creep keeping each other's spirits up during the morning walk.

Greg: (Crunch of snow) Coffee.

(Crunch of snow)

(Crunch of snow)

(Crunch of snow)

Me: (Crunch of snow) Donuts.

How did 20 years happen?

I now have 386 friends according to my FaceBook profile and with each new friendship request I feel like Hamlet, Act III in the midst of a digital Denmark muttering, "To friend or not to friend . . ."?

The status updates create the most longing (coincidentally Jason is going to get his wife donuts). Self-pity and regret creep in and I'm alone on this social media parapet Booth-like wrestling the Dane's mortal coil.

Arthur Schopenhauer simplified Hamlet's soliloquy as our state of being, " . . . so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable," yet, "there is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things."

I meet old friends up close in posted photos and 25 random things and the knowledge of what once was tightens with my memories of what I imagined would be.

There is a lyric by Paul Westerberg on his Mono disc in a song called 2 days 'til tomorrow that reads, "From a distance you look peaceful and so far away up close . . ." Westerberg wrote that tune among others after a 5 year silence and a nervous break-down. He was making good from the bad left over when his major label record contract and promises of being the next big thing flamed out. He put it together in his basement alone probably in the middle of a Minnesota Winter not unlike the Dante hell of a Chicago January.

I've brought Westerberg's sense of intimacy to my relationships. I credit this lesson to my Pop. The Old Man would wax stoic over Altes Golden Lager (Fassbier) when things got a little hot between him and my Mom. When the Old Lady needed transparency to quiet her anxiety and avoid the blackness of rejection, Pop would meet her confusion with a cigarette-choked mumble, "You figger it out."

I never thought I'd miss the people I left behind but I do. I hear my Pop's choked laugh, "You figger it out."

Facebook contains a dangerous amount of background radiation. Mary V posted party pics from 1993 and at once I realized that the "grunge era" was an era (and it is gone). I noticed the page-boy Eddie Vedder bob on Rob and wondered if his colleagues at Bell & Ross now would forgive him such an "Evenflow" doo.

This stuff has a half-life. There's Danny my theatre company partner and my favorite actor (now in California); Kate in full riot grrrl dress (now back in Detroit); Keegan (famous now impersonating President Obama on MadTV); and Randy (gone to the next life God bless him).

The boys' sin in Pinocchio was to stay young forever in the land of play. Boys who strive after the land of play become donkeys. To crave youth makes one a jackass.

I was a jackass back in that time with these friends. I would play a head-game and measure myself against my favorite men's defining age. I didn't do this to set goals but instead did it in the hopes of slowing time through nervous rationalization in the hopes of telling myself I could yet be somebody, someday.

At 22 I told myself that Dustin Hoffman was 30 when the Graduate was made, and at 30 I told myself Raymond Carver was 40 when he finally was published, and when I woke unemployed at 40 this year I told myself Shaw was nearly 70 when he landed his Nobel Prize.

I try to buy time like this and I realize I am just an ass.

How did twenty years happen?

Facebook Melancholia is no fun. I miss my friends.

Being up close so far away is not that peaceful.

Frugality, sharing food and fatherhood

My wife Jackie is frugal and she likes to share food.

Last Christmas as we made our way out East to visit her family we stopped in Amish country to get some grub. It was as if Jackie was inspired by the bearded and buggy-whipped Puritans. I was amazed as we stood in line at the local Wendy's and watched her calculate utility costs. She automatically determined the value equation of a fast-food super-sized soft-drink convincing me that one extra-large Diet Coke shared would be worth more than two large drinks or a medium-sized soft-drink and a large soft-drink; or an extra-large soft-drink and any other sized soft-drink; or two small soft drinks (please feel free to fill in the potential combinations yourself). And since neither of us drink soft-drinks all that often we should be able to overlook the cost to our enjoyment the lack of variety a shared Extra-Large brings.

I balked at her logic but felt silly arguing for my own soda-pop while surrounded by families wearing sack-cloth, head-scarves and sincere Quaker piety. I surrendered and to my surprise wasn't hindered by swapping a straw over burgers. Plus sharing an extra-large limited our soda-pop intake therefore eliminating too many pee-stops during the last leg of our car trip. Jackie informed me that maximizing our hydration while minimizing bladder discomfort was one of the factors she considered when suggesting the shared extra-large.

She's not frugal because she's cheap or because she enjoys calculating the derivative benefits of marginal cost curves. She enjoys sharing because to do so can amplify a simple pleasure and make it an event.

When reading the above back to Jackie she said that she, "sounds like a crazy person." And to some extent she is. She employs reason in a world of self-gratification not to simply gratify herself but to extend her boundaries to include others.

On our first date at a local breakfast place here in Chicago Jackie suggested that I order the "Bliss Cakes" and she would order the egg special. This would ensure that we could enjoy a breakfast made up of both sweet and savory flavors. We wouldn't get bored.

Her desire to share is an odd behavior to me because I come from a family of six that occupied a three bedroom bungalow in a Detroit working class neighborhood. We were a surly group chilled by the long shadow of Irish alcoholic resentment. My brother used to bite himself on the arm and go running to my Mom blaming me for the abuse so that he could win her favor and gain some modest (albeit undeserved) affection. She'd give him a treat while I received punishment. I wonder still if his self-mutilation was designed for his pleasure or my pain. I'm still not sure which one he valued more.

Jackie's free-handed generosity and the practical joy it brings was felt with full effect during a recent lay-off I experienced. She responded to my shame and depression with a willingness to organize our finances and reassured me that home-cooked meals and Netflix movie nights would be luxuries that would warm her heart. She never once denied me my fears or guilt or anxieties and she shared my confusion and hurt. Her frugal nature mined the now-shrunken assets we had and made me mindful of the value found in living life with gratitude and integrity. And when my depression seemed critical she shared with me her love and hope to help me understand I can escape the long-shadow of my disappointing child-hood and find new life in sharing prayers and feelings.

A good friend of mine once asked me after my first marriage crumbled if I would want to be married again. I said to him that I wasn't sure. The freedom of not having to deal with another's selfishness was a tempting and enjoyable pleasure. I secretly felt the tug of my broken home and thought to myself, "marriage is a trap." My friend seemed confused and asked if I wanted to be a father. I said to him that being a father demands that I find someone I can share life with. He agreed but didn't understand that my response wasn't so much a pre-requisite but a cynical riddle I posited as proof that marriage wasn't possible. I thought then that a life shared is not a reality because the sacrifices it demands would interfere with one's expectations and therefore become complicated and competitive. Eventually a relationship would always tend towards my brother's principle of self-harm to gain short term pleasure.

All this was before Jackie. I fell in love with her because I watched how she continually made space for the hurting and harmed. Her willingness to speak truth into people's self-deception with a kindness that demanded nothing was a wonder I delighted and delight in. She is a believer in Jesus Christ but unlike the many Christians I know who seek the justice of a vengeful theology, she embodies the Savior as He drew circles in the dirt and challenged the theology of the self-righteous by positing, "whoever is without sin, cast the first stone."

I still live in the long-shadow of a child-hood remembered for scarcity and pain but recently have come to trust the value found in frugality and sharing food. Jackie and I are talking about starting a family. This is something I never would have considered two years ago but fatherhood seems possible knowing that I have escaped the riddle of my own cynicism and found someone I truly can share life with.