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Selections from My Favorite Short Story

But that night after dinner and a whisky and soda by the fire before going to bed, as Francis Macomber lay on his cot with the mosquito bar over him and listened to the night noises it was not all over. It was neither all over nor was it beginning. It was there exactly as it happened with some parts of it indelibly emphasized and he was miserably ashamed at it. But more than shame he felt cold, hollow fear in him. The fear was still there like a cold slimy hollow in all the emptiness where once his confidence had been and it made him feel sick. It was still there with him now.

…

His wife had been through with him before but it never lasted. He was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier, and he knew she would not leave him ever now. That was one of the few things that he really knew. He knew about that, about motor cycles–that was earliest–about motor cars, about duck-shooting, about fishing, trout, salmon and big-sea, about sex in books, many books, too many books, about all court games, about dogs, not much about horses, about hanging on to his money, about most of the other things his world dealt in, and about his wife not leaving him. His wife had been a great beauty and she was still a great beauty in Africa, but she was not a great enough beauty any more at home to be able to leave him and better herself and she knew it and he knew it. She had missed the chance to leave him and he knew it. If he had been better with women she would probably have started to worry about him getting another new, beautiful wife; but she knew too much about him to worry about him either. Also, he had always had a great tolerance which seemed the nicest thing about him if it were not the most sinister.

…

They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him.

…

Their figures stay boyish when they’re fifty. The great American boy-men. Damned strange people. But he liked this Macomber now. Damned strange fellow. Probably meant the end of cuckoldry too. Well, that would be a damned good thing. Damned good thing. Beggar had probably been afraid all his life. Don’t know what started it. But over now. Hadn’t had time to be afraid with the buff. That and being angry too. Motor car too. Motor cars made it familiar. Be a damn fire eater now. He’d seen it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear.

From the far corner of the seat Margaret Macomber looked at the two of them. There was no change in Wilson. She saw Wilson as she had seen him the day before when she had first realized what his great talent was. But she saw the change in Francis Macomber now.

…

“You’ve gotten awfully brave, awfully suddenly,” his wife said contemptuously, but her contempt was not secure. She was very afraid of something.

Macomber laughed, a very natural hearty laugh. “You know I have,” he said. “I really have.”

“Isn’t it sort of late?” Margot said bitterly. Because she had done the best she could for many years back and the way they were together now was no one person’s fault.

“Not for me,” said Macomber.

Entire story here.

Dads

I fancy myself a fairly self-sufficient guy. I know how to live off the land. I have both training and experience in survival in various climes and locales. I have treated my own wounds, built houses, rebuilt engines, farmed, and enjoyed all of it.

But I don’t know everything. Sometimes, like this weekend when the battery in my truck caught fire, I need to ask for advice. When that happens, I call my Dad. Doesn’t matter that I have a friend in my phone that is an SAE-certified mechanic, Dad is the person I call. And when I ask him a question that he doesn’t know the answer to, he does the same thing. “Is it possible for the short to be inside the battery itself?” “I don’t know, let me call my dad, I’ll call you back.”

“I just talked to my dad, and he said that it is possible for the short to be inside the battery itself, and in fact that is likely since you haven’t found any heat or arcing anywhere other than the battery terminal.” As I set out on the mile-and-a-half walk to the nearest auto parts store carrying my old battery, I felt more confident just for having gotten advice from Dad and by extension Grandpa. As it turned out, the short was not in the battery itself, but the information I had received from my dad helped me find the problem far more quickly than I likely would have found it otherwise.

Dads are important.

Dads teach us how to be men.

Sure, sometimes some other male figure may step up and do a dad’s job, like Walt Kowalski did in Gran Torino, teaching a surrogate son to be a man. Yet that reinforces, rather than denigrates, the importance of fatherhood. The directionless bankruptcy of masculinity today is due to two factors: men who shirked their role as a father, and women who stole their children’s right to a father through the artificial bastardization of divorce.

Both are despicable.

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! —Hebrews 12:9 (NIV)

David and Michal

And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it: and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. So all the people departed every one to his house. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death. —2 Samuel 6:14-23

Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

Cane has a post up in which he attacks the concept that:

There are three kinds of people in the world: Sheep (who cannot defend themselves), Wolves (who use violence to prey on the sheep) and Sheepdogs (who use violence against the wolves to protect the sheep).

Of course, the astute reader will recognize this characterization as a bastardization of Col. Grossman’s original sheep/sheepdog/wolf illustration. (Note, I am not saying that Cane is responsible for this bastardization. Indeed, from the conversation in the comments, I gathered the impression that the bastardized version was the only one he had come across) It is worth noting the differences between the original illustration and the one quoted above.

First off, in the version above, the statement is made that the sheep cannot defend themselves. This directly contradicts Grossman’s claim that the rising psychological casualties of war are directly caused by training that makes the “sheep” effective at not only defensive, but also offensive violence. In other words, sheep are perfectly capable of preying on others, or defending themselves. Contrary to popular belief, strapping on a gun, a badge, or both does not a sheepdog make. Rather (in Grossman’s illustration) it makes an armed sheep. Many armed sheep fancy themselves sheepdogs, and (if I understand him correctly) it is these that Cane speaks of when he writes:

 To those people, the sheepdog is special because–like wolves–it has claws, fangs, strength, speed, and that it delights in the hunt, and in the kill; yet the sheepdog is on the side of the sheep, and that this is called righteousness.

and

Because the more closely a person believes that what makes sheepdogs special is the sheepdog’s likeness to wolves(possession and desire to use claws, fangs, etc.)the more likely that person is to prefer the sheepdog metaphor.

Yet neither of these describe accurately the sheepdog in Grossman’s illustration. What sets the sheepdog apart in Grossman’s analogy is not the instruments of violence (claws, fangs, concealed handguns, etc.) but rather a mental aberration that causes him, at a fundamental level, to consider other’s lives more valuable than his own. This is far more rare than strapping on a handgun. It is not the sheepdog’s resemblance to the wolf, but rather his discongruity with the wolf that makes him special.

See, fundamentally, the wolf is much more similar to the sheep than to the sheepdog. Both the wolf and the sheep are motivated by basic self-preservation, an instinct that is foreign to the sheepdog. The main difference is that the sheep seeks to preserve itself through conformity, while the wolf preserves itself and profits off of the conformity of others. When sheep strap on a Glock, they move towards the wolf, and not the sheepdog. Why? Because fundamentally they are still worried about their own interest, their own safety, their own family, their own life. Such a mentality is antithetical to the sheepdog.

Cane referred to these people as “sheepwolves.” I would agree with that assessment (although we may have divergent reasons for using the term). However, despite using the term “sheepwolf,” Cane does not seem to grasp the thin line between sheep and wolf, instead harping on a supposedly thin line between the sheepdog and the wolf. While the difference between the sheep and the wolf is simply a matter of power, the difference between the sheepdog and the wolf is a matter of priorities–is self-preservation the top priority or the last thing on the mind? I would argue that such a fundamental difference in priorities is far harder to bridge than the simple power gap between the sheep and wolves.

However, Cane’s perspective may be explained by something he wrote in the comments in reply to me.

Col Grossman is making the same mistake that the right-minded people do: He looked at the occurrence of keeping sheep, and thought there was something remarkable about some canines doing this, and some canines doing that instead of what the canines were pointing to.

Cane seems to think that Col. Grossman came up with a theory of how humans respond psychologically to violence by observing sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. This is not the case. Rather, Grossman observed a pattern in humans, and used an imperfect animal metaphor to make it easier to understand.  In the same way, Jesus did not come up with a theory of heaven based on observing prodigal sons, but rather used a human metaphor to explain something he was already familiar with but his audience was not.

Now, despite all that I have written above, and how far out of context I think the original illustration was taken, I agree with what I see as the main points of Cane’s post: that the role of Christ’s followers is to be both leaders and followers, and that violence is not the root of righteousness (although it can be righteous). But I think there is something valuable in Grossman’s original illustration that Cane missed: the idea of priorities. I felt that bringing up such points in the discussion on Cane’s post after having determined (at least in my mind) his main points, might distract from the conversation he wants to have there. Therefore, I have placed my thoughts here, for Cane (and the rest of you) to engage or ignore at his (and your) leisure.

The Red Ginseng Store has Exceptional Customer Service

This is an unqualified endorsement of the Red Ginseng Store. I believe in giving credit for excellence, and so I am sharing my experience here. If you are interested in purchasing ginseng root, I strongly recommend that you check them out.

I was looking to experiment with ginseng tea as an alternative/supplement to caffeine for the times when I am called out for work in the middle of the night for unknown amounts of time with no warning and lives depending on my alertness, awareness, and judgement. The Red Ginseng Store seemed to have great prices, so I put in an order for 100 grams to test it out.

Within hours of submitting my order I had an email from the proprietor of the store, informing me that he was leaving the country early in the morning, and would not be able to ship my order until he returned in three days. He said he was including several grams extra of product to compensate for the delay in shipping. I wasn’t too worried about it, so it was about a week before I checked the tracking to see where my order was. I was surprised to see that my order had already been delivered, but to my billing address in the northland rather than my shipping address here at my home-in-exile in the southland. I sent the proprietor an email informing him of this and asking that he re-send my order as it will be months before I get a chance to go back to my billing address. A couple days later, my order arrived at my correct shipping address.

I have tried to work with other companies that mis-shipped packages before, and it can be extremely hard to get them to re-send product. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was in this case. I was also impressed by the inclusion of extra product to compensate for a shipping delay that I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. I don’t know how many of my readers are interested in ginseng, but if you are one of them, I highly recommend you consider using the Red Ginseng Store as your source, as my experience was outstanding.

Esther 1:13-22

Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times (for this was the king’s procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment, the men next to him being Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king’s face, and sat first in the kingdom): “According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti, because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?”  Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, “Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will say the same to all the king’s officials, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty. If it please the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.”  This advice pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed.  He sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people.

Of Weddings and Baptisms

I’m now at the age where the frequency of friend’s weddings has dropped from a frantic frenzy to a steady stream. Recently, I was talking to one of my friends who is engaged about his wedding plans, and for the first time I started to actually think critically about weddings, which I’d never gave a whole lot of thought to before. I’ve come to the conclusion that the way we usually do weddings is wrong.

My friend told me how much money his wedding was going to cost, and I was flabbergasted. Far more than I have ever paid for an automobile for a celebration that lasts only hours? It certainly seemed wiser to me to spend the money on a down payment for a house than on a wedding. After all, it is the marriage, and not the wedding, that is the point, isn’t it?

As I thought more about it, I came to see that the modern extravagant wedding is not only ill-advised, but also wrong. Think about this. What is a wedding? Webster’s defines wedding as “a marriage ceremony usually with its accompanying festivities.” Allow me to posit my own definition. A wedding is a public ceremony in which two people publicly commit to give up their individuality and join their lives together as “one flesh” for the remainder of their lives.

Fair enough?

What does that definition remind you of? I’ll tell you what it reminds me of: baptism. Yep, baptism. Why? Well, baptism is a public ceremony in which a person publicly commits to give up their individuality and become one with Christ for the remainder of his or her life. There are other parallels too: when two people get married, the woman takes the name of her husband (i.e. Mrs. Jones). Likewise, when a person is baptized they take on Christ’s name (i.e. Christian). Both weddings and baptisms are cause for celebration, but both are just ceremonies. More important than either ceremony are the commitments they represent.

With me so far?

Once I came to the conclusion that baptisms and weddings are closely related ceremonies, I started to think about how much more money we spend on one than the other. I couldn’t find any statistics for the average cost of a baptism in the US, but I’d be willing to bet it is under $100. The cost of the average wedding in the US was easy to find. According to CNN.com, it was $28,427 in 2012. When I first saw that number, I thought that for sure it included honeymoons, and so I scrolled down to the financial breakdown to see what it was without the honeymoon. I was shocked to see that the 28.5 grand figure was for wedding only, excluding honeymoon.

The disparity is amazing, especially considering that both ceremonies are usually performed by pastors in a church for free or a nominal fee. It reminds me of a passage from the book of Haggai:

Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.” —Haggai 1:3-11

Now, this passage is talking about how God withheld blessings from Israel because they prioritized their own homes over the house of God. In principle though, is our elevation of our commitments to fellow humans far above our commitment to God any different? I think not. It speaks to our priorities.

Spending extravagant sums on a wedding doesn’t ensure the marriage will last. If you can publicly commit to the all-powerful Creator of the universe who gave His only begotten son to save you from your sin and remake you in His image as part of a regular church service without spending thousands of dollars, you can publicly commit to a fellow fallible human being in the same way. After all, which commitment is more important?

The New Christianity

Christian used to mean a follower of Christ and his teachings. It doesn’t anymore. At least, not if “Christian mommyblogger”  Jenny Erikson is allowed to define the terms. It seems Christianity is about following “God,” which apparently is a euphemism for “myself.” In her article, How My Husband Found Out I Was Leaving Him, she rails against her church and pastor for engaging in the terribly un-Christian behavior of believing the Bible. Quoting from her article:

My husband defended him [her pastor] as doing his pastoral duty. I looked him straight in the eyeballs and said, “The fact that you are defending this man’s actions yesterday is one of a thousand reasons I cannot stay married to you.”

That was a month and a half ago. I’ve spoken to two other leaders at my church, and they have both defended My Pastor’s actions that day. And they have both asked me time and time again to ‘repent of my sin.’

Did you know that apparently it’s up to men in the church to decide if you have cause for divorce, not God? I keep wanting to ask them if they’re going to tell God on me, but thus far have managed to refrain.

So that’s the story of how my husband found out I was leaving him. Last I heard he’s still going to My (ex) Pastor for council on the matter of his broken marriage.

Because I’m sure that guy has my best interest at heart.

Notice that she’s not getting divorced because her husband engaged in fornication, the justification that Christ stated was acceptable in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. No, she is divorcing him because, among other things, he dares to defend her pastor when she is upset with her pastor for doing what is unquestionably his duty as a pastor. However, she knows that her frivolous divorce is not a sin, despite the clear words of Christ stating that it is a sin, because obviously when Christ said “except for fornication” He really meant “except for fornication, or defending a pastor doing his job, or any other petty offense.” Clearly the leaders at her church are in the wrong for assuming that Christ meant exactly what he said.

Oh, and that thing that her pastor did that she was so mad about? Well, when he heard a rumor that she was about to serve divorce papers on her husband he tried to contact her, or as she put it “began harassing me the next day via phone, email, and text.” When she repeatedly ignored his attempts to contact her, he called her husband (who answered his phone) and gave him a heads up. Of course, this gave her husband a little time to digest the news, cheating her out of the pleasure she intended to get by giving him a surprise emotional shock.

Clearly the pastor was in the wrong here, and not the woman needlessly tearing apart her family and practically bastardizing her two daughters and robbing them of the benefits of a two-parent home.

The tagline on Jenny’s blog reads “God, Family, Politics, Wine (In That Order).” I really have no clue what she means. Obviously, “God” does not mean Christ, whose words she blatantly disregards, nor His Father with whom Christ is one (John 10:30). Clearly “family” doesn’t include her daughters (whom she refers to in the article as Thing 1 and Thing 2), nor the man she married.

I guess this is what Christian means now.

Barbells and Bibles: How to Share What you Know Without Being a Jerk

Today, in the gym, a guy asked me to critique his form. That’s not necessarily a noteworthy occurrence, except for the fact that this guy was a crossfit instructor. For those of you that aren’t familiar with crossfit, for many of its practitioners it’s practically a religion–to them, crossfit is the only way to work out. However, this crossfit instructor wasn’t too proud to ask a guy who was clearly doing a non-crossfit type workout for advice on form for front squats and push presses. We ended up having an interesting conversation between sets, including discussing the merits of doing kettlebell swings to eyeball level or continuing them above eyeball level. Why did this guy, a crossfit instructor, ask me for advice? Probably because I was doing strict form deadlifts, and because I carry a lot of muscle mass at a relatively low body fat percentage.

I’m out of state for some training right now, and the accommodations here are in two-man rooms. This morning during a class break, I was asked “Is it true that the first thing you do as soon as your alarm goes off in the morning is read?” I guess my roommate likes to tell stories on me. After I replied that I indeed do read first thing in the morning, I was asked the reasonable follow-up question of why. I replied that I like to read from my Bible to get me in the right headspace to start my day. One of my fellow classmates actually said, “that’s a cool idea.”

When I go to the gym, I don’t give out unsolicited advice. I see people all the time doing exercises that aren’t really going to do them any good, like leg adductions, but I don’t go up to them them and tell them that what they are doing is worthless. People can be very sensitive about their workout routines, and no one likes a stranger telling them that they don’t know what they are doing. However, when asked I am more than happy to help people. One time a co-worker, having seen me do heavy squats, asked me to help him with squats, which was a weak point for him. By helping him correct his form, I was able to increase the weight he used by over a hundred pounds in a single workout. The reason that he was willing to listen to my advice was because he asked me for help, rather than me offering it unsolicited.

My philosophy on sharing religion is pretty much the same as my philosophy on sharing fitness advice–I don’t do it unsolicited, but I don’t shy away from answering questions or sharing what I know with people who ask me to. Like workout routines, religious beliefs are something that people are sensitive about. Many religious people do not seem to grasp this concept. Either they will alienate a person that they could befriend by telling them how their religion is wrong, or when asked by someone why they do what they do or believe what they believe they shy away from the question. While I won’t go up to the person doing leg adductions and tell them that what they are doing is worthless, if that person comes up to me and asks me why I do squats I’m not going to say “well, I do squats and you do leg adductions, we both work out our legs so really it’s just a matter of personal preference.” Instead I’m going to explain how squats work the whole body, stimulate testoterone production, and stabilize the entire lower body and posterior chain while working the adductors in a stabilizing role more than they would be worked by straight adductions.

In both the gym world and the religious world, people take exception to, and generally disregard the advice of, the person who comes up and tells them that what they are doing is wrong. Don’t be the person who does that. At the same time, it’s pretty low down to hold back your knowledge when someone comes to you and asks you to share it. Don’t be the person who does that either. Both of those kinds of people are jerks.

Don’t be a jerk.