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In the wake of recent incidences of mass shootings, some folks are wondering how to reduce gun violence, mainly by means of tighter gun controls. Personally, I think guns are not even the beginning of the problem. Guns are inanimate objects, just like knives, ropes, clubs or any other item used to attack another person.

The problem lies at the very root of a culture in which the best way to solve a problem, whether it be personal, business or political, is to resort to violence. It’s not always physical violence. But it is violence none the less. We live in a world where the motto seems to be:

Challenge, defeat, demoralize, eliminate, if necessary, kill.

Someone teasing you? A competitor moving in on your business? Your partner stepping out with another person? A neighbor does something you don’t like? Felling threatened, challenged, embarrassed, powerless, hopeless…? Violence is the answer. You turn the tables on those who tease you. You take steps (legal or not) to drive the competitor out of business. You embarrass, harass, humiliate the unfaithful partner. You give the neighbor some of his own medicine. You assert your “rights” and demand to be treated “fairly.” And, of course, if the non-physical, subtle forms of violence don’t work, ultimately you must destroy violently, quite often leading to murder.

This is the message played out daily on TV, in movies, in video games and even in music. The powerful person/group/country who can vanquish enemies is celebrated.

Violence is not confined to interpersonal relationships. It is the basis for how the top level of human institutions deal with one another. If one government doesn’t like what another government does or believes, sanctions are issued, tariffs are raised, borders are secured, and, at the peak of the squabble, violent intervention in the form of bombings and war ensue.

We can rationalize violence as necessary at certain moments in history as “for the good” of the majority. However, violence has an unpleasant tendency to lead to more violence. Our laws tell us which forms of violence are acceptable (war, police action) and which are not (assault, murder). Ultimately, however, glorifying the conqueror at high levels just teaches us to glorify conquerors and to desire to become conquerors ourselves.

My final mileage total for 2008 was 467 miles. I’ve zeroed out the trip counter and we’ll see how I do in 2009 (if the poor old Mercedes even makes it through another year… I have my doubts). I had some trouble with the car and took it to my mechanic who said the only real problem is that I don’t drive it enough. Oh well, I’m not going to drive just for the sake of driving. I guess the car will just have to spit and sputter a bit.

Since I finished school in December I’ve been in a kind of enjoyable limbo. I haven’t really wanted to do any work and yet I haven’t really figured out what to do with all the time that was previously devoted to school. I’m trying to remember what I did before I had my fit of lunacy and went back to school. Honestly, I can’t even remember. So, I’ve spent a couple of days compiling ideas for all the things I want to do in 2009 and then crafting a schedule to work on them all bit by bit each day. My first schedule had no time alloted for work, which would be nice but I don’t think the mortgage company would understand. So I took another stab at schedule-making and hope I’ve come up with one that will indulge all the interests I’ve ignored for nearly 3 years and still put food on the table.

Here’s to an adventurous 2009!

Happy New Year Glitter

This was in an email Mom sent me. I love Maxine. You can visit her at Maxine.com

“If you have a dream you should commit to it. If you have a vocation that you love and you want to be the very best, good luck to you. But wherever your journey leads you, remember that life is not an assignment. It is an adventure that should be filled with beauty, bliss and, above all, pleasure.”-Michael Flocker in The Hedonism Handbook

“If Bohemians wrote the bylaws on pets and city living, there would be goats in city gardens and a community cow. Ferrets would be legal, and the air would flutter with hummingbirds, falcons, owls and bats. And all the animals would glide, swim and frolic, unfettered and free. The Bohemian is all for a peaceable kingdom.”-Laren Stover in Bohemian Manifesto

“Good taste is the enemy of creativity.”-Pablo Picasso

“If we cultivate our delight in and gratitude for the least thing–a drink of water, a night’s rest, the sight of a blue jay–we cultivate the life strong within us and enliven possibility itself.”-Stephanie Mills in Epicurean Simplicity

I spotted this grasshopper taking a siesta in some lavender. He didn’t seem to mind having his picture taken.

I had taken these pictures in the spring, but just now got around to pulling them off the camera. The Butterfly Rose (large picture at bottom and cream colored, single petal rose on left) is my all-time favorite.

Well, it’s July 3 and I’ve driven less than 250 miles since January 1. I’d say that’s a pretty car-lite driving record. I recently paid my car insurance bill and had to pause a moment and decide if it was really worth it. I’ve gone as long as 2 weeks without getting the car out of the garage. In the colder months, I often discovered the battery had gone dead from sitting so long in the cold. If I can figure out how to get to the places that required me to drive those 250 miles, I’ll get rid of the car. Unfortunately, the OKC metro area has a pretty much worthless public transportation system and really no plan to improve it. OKC and Tulsa were ranked the most vulnerable cities when it comes to citizens dealing with high gas prices — it’s drive or stay home for most folks in the Sooner state.

I found a website called Walk Score that helps you figure out how walkable your community is. Mine scored a 46 which means “Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.” I suppose this tool uses some type of factor on how far of a walk is an “easy walk.” Personally, I’d consider anything under a mile an easy walk. Most everything is within a mile of my house, but my neighborhood still got a low score. My only complaint is the lack of sidewalks…

I like to bake my own bread — sometimes using the bread machine sometimes not. Today I thought it would be nice to make some sourdough bread. Of course, to do sourdough you have to have a starter. I found this guy’s sourdough starter instructions and used those. I used the organic whole wheat flour I get through my local food co-op. It’ll be 3 or 4 days before it’s ready to use. Hopefully, I’ll be baking sourdough bread on Monday. For now it just looks like a jar of gooey flour.

I also whipped up my first batch of yogurt using my new Yolife yogurt maker. I added banana for flavor. I think I’ll get some peaches for the next batch. It seemed almost too easy. It should be done early this evening and then I’ll pop the little jars in the fridge and give it a taste tomorrow. Fourth of July yogurt… yummy.

I just turned in my last assignment for my summer class. I’m free from schoolwork until September. And, thankfully, I only have 2 more classes. I’ll finish on December 7. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Now of course the question turns to what to do with all this fancy (expensive) education. I believe the results are not what the university or my church had in mind. I wonder how my classmates deal with the obvious disconnect between what we read, study and analyze in our classes and the practical application in our churches. And not just Nazarene churches. The disconnect seems present in nearly all evangelical/conservative Protestant churches. At what point between seminary and pastorate do the leaders of the churches shut off their minds? Or, perhaps they never turned them on. Maybe they just went through the motions and memorized and regurgitated enough information to get by, all the while clinging to long held, simplistic beliefs about the nature of God, man and the church. I know that’s the case with some — they proudly denigrate the “liberal” thinking of the institutions they attended. It seems for them the only point in going to school was to get the piece of paper that would allow them to preach their own narrow views, not the fullness of the biblical message that they *should* have learned in school.

The end result, for me, is that I’ll be looking outside the evangelical/conservative churches for a place to continue my journey. I want to continue to study, to read and to write. I’m not interested in settling for a narrow view of a wide God.