Category: random thoughts

I know the whole “alpha” concept in animal packs has recently been called into question, but this is a photo of the alpha pet in our house.  Helen dominates both our other cat, Oreo (though she is never called by that name – usually Pam calls her “kitty girl” and I call her “stupid cat”), and Clive, the animal who should be our alpha pet because he is awesome.

She doesn’t do it through aggression. She does it through deafness. She bats Oreo around and continues to chase and play with Oreo even though Oreo growls and hisses as much as she possibly can. Oreo does everything she can to convey to Helen that if Helen continues such behavior then Oreo is going to get more aggressive, without actually getting aggressive. Of course, Helen can’t hear all Oreo’s attempts to convey to her how seriously annoying she is getting, so Helen just keeps on playing. Since, Oreo doesn’t actually want to get aggressive, because a fight will inevitably lead to both parties sustaining damage, Oreo eventually just ends up running away from Helen.  The small kitten wins.

Helen likes eating with Clive and sleeping in his bed. When Clive starts eating Helen jumps right in there with him and pushes him out of the way a little to get some food. Clive does what any dog would do when another creature starts to steal its food. He growls and barks and tries to convey to Helen “this is dangerous, you don’t want to do this”. Helen is busy eating and can ‘t hear anything so she just keep on eating. When Clive jumps into his bed at night, Helen likes to sleep with him. That’s usually fine with Clive until Helen decides she wants to bite his tail when it moves. Clive growls but it is again to no avail because a noisy threat is meaningless to a creature that is unable to hear it. Clive doesn’t actually want to fight and therefore, Clive just gets out of his bed and leaves it to Helen.

I’m sure some personal improvement coach could write a book of inspiration concerning how much you can accomplish if you just don’t hear the people telling you don’t do that. If you write this book it should be called “the Helen Principle”. All I know is that a 5 pound kitten is ruling our house simply because she can’t hear the threats that are being hurled her way.

I know the word “ignorance” can be emotionally charged but I want to write about its value, or at least the value of recognizing when and where we are ignorant.

I’m not writing about willful racists or bigoted attitudes, that is not the type of ignorance I am going to discuss. Instead, I want to consider ignorance in the sense of a lack of knowledge on a subject. The etymology of Ignorance is from Old English, “in” (“not”) + gnarus (“aware, acquainted with”). So ignorance is “not to know”.

The smartest people I know talk the most about how little they know. One of the benefits of their knowledge in their field of expertise is that they have some idea of just how little they actually know and how little can currently be known about their field of expertise. They are often slow to speak and make strong statements because they realize how tenuous such statements are. If a subject is really important it is often very difficult to make definite statements concerning the subject. on the other hand, I find that the people who often know the least about a subject are the ones who often speak the most and more easily make the strongest statements concerning the subject.

It’s the novices that seem to talk about how much they know. I believe much of this talk comes from us as novices not having any idea of what we don’t know and what can’t be known, at least at this time, concerning our subjects. This is why we make the most definitive statements when we are novices and why experts often make the most cautious statements. Because one doesn’t know enough to know how little they actually know, and the other knows enough to make a few declarations as possible.

In my case there are various subjects I’m talking about concerning this. I used to “know” so much more about God, the Bible, and people, because I didn’t actually know enough to know how little I knew. I had enough knowledge to puff me up but no where near enough to produce humility concerning what I didn’t know. I was sure I had things figured out. Now I recognize much more mystery because I have a slightly better idea of how little i know.

This doesn’t mean I don’t know anything or change the authority of statements I can make. Actually, if anything it gives my statements greater reliability. When I say something definitively now, there is a greater likelihood that it actually is a definitive statement. Having some idea of my own ignorance is a great thing.

So why did I title this “The Practice of Ignorance”? Well, because I believe our natural tendency, or at least my natural tendency, is to assume we/I know more than we/I do. Some of this is probably because we/I want to look smart in front of other people. Part of this is probably that expressing ignorance on a subject involves vulnerability or can imply weakness and that is something that we/I usually want to avoid. Some of this is probably because we/I often think too highly of what we/I know and don’t realize how much we/I don’t know. I’m sure there are tons of other reasons.

If I am right that it is our natural tendency to assume we we/I know more than we/I do, then we only break the tendency by purposefully practicing breaking that habit. We/I need to practice assuming we know less than we/I think we/I do. That’s how we get better at it, and getting better at assuming we know less than we think we do will make us better learners and wiser people. So this month I am going to practice assuming I know less than I think I do.

I’m going to write about a podcast episode that I really enjoyed from a podcast that I have mixed feelings concerning. The podcast is The Art of Manliness Podcast. It isn’t a podcast that I listen to all the time. I do subscribe to it and if a topic catches my attention then I will listen to that episode. I find that the episodes are rather hit or miss. The misses, in my opinion, are usually because of generalizations between the sexes that are mistakenly taken to be universals. Be it nature or nurture there are some generalized differences between the sexes, but those differences are on large, extremely overlapping continuum. I also believe The Art of Manliness Podcast falls into the whole cult of masculinity thing every now and then, and I’m not a big fan of the cult of masculinity.

Anyhow I really enjoyed the episode from November 30th “Podcast #360: Understanding Male Friendships“. The episode was primarily an interview of Dr. Geoffrey Greif, Associate Dean and Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland. He discussed his book “Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships“.

I specifically appreciated his discussion concerning face-to-face and side-by-side friendships. Greif’s describes these two friendships in the following manner:

• Face-to-Face Friendship – talking & sharing lead to connection
• Side-by-Side Friendship – common tasks lead to connection

Greif states that face-to-face is more common for female/female friendships and side-by-side is more common for male/male friendships. This is my experience and understanding of male and female friendship generalizations also. I would add that in my opinion neither paradigm is exclusive to either sex. The problem that he believes exists for the majority of male friendships is that as a society we have co-opted the face-to-face paradigm as the basic definition of friendship. Since for many men the only face-to-face friendship they have is with their spouse they often believe and, therefore, live as though they have no friends. Thus many men are very lonely.

I really enjoyed the podcast and Pam and I have been talking a good bit about face-to-face and side-by-side friendships since I listened to the episode. We mutually pointed out several examples of two paradigm as we were watching “Wonder“.

This is why as a pastor and chaplain I often try to do a task with a guy if I believe he might need to talk about something.

SIDE NOTE – you should read the book “Wonder” or go see the movie if you haven’t done so already.

I had a friend a long time ago who always ended up in the center of whatever group photo was being taken. It wasn’t really a big deal and to my knowledge nobody really thought about it, until one of the group of friends pointed it out and then it became obvious that this person always arranged for himself to be  at the center of the photo. Just finished a service project and wanted to take a group photo. Bam! There he was in the center of the photo. Attended a wedding that this person only knew tangentially. Pow! He would suddenly appear right beside the bride and groom smiling away. It wasn’t a big deal … because someone has to be in the center of the photo and this person was a fine person so no one cared if he wanted to be in the center of the photo. Still it was very obvious that he always wanted to be at the center of the photo.

There are, however, people who have to be in the center of every story and the center of all attention.  These people need to take everybody else’s good event or accomplishment and somehow turn it into something that praises themselves or belittle the current thing by pointing out how much better something they did was. Leith Anderson described these people as “chip stealers” because they are always trying to take the credit and steal people’s “chips”. I wrote about “ministry poker chips” here.

I witnessed this recently with someone having a conversation with Pam. The conversation started about something that Pam had done. Eventually this person joined in the conversation and directed Pam’s accomplishment back toward himself. Of course, “good” husband that I am I didn’t recognize this until a day later when I was mulling the dialogue over in my head because something didn’t feel right. So all I could do was fume over the fact that the person had turned Pam’s accomplishment around to focus on them and regret that I hadn’t turned it back to Pam.

Anyhow, watch out for those “center of the photo” people. Most of them are probably pretty nice but I few are down right nasty. Avoid allowing those “nasty” ones to steal the center of your photos, but you probably don’t have to worry so much about the nice ones.

SIDE NOTE – The 2017 Deer Hunting Season is over for me. I didn’t get anything this year because 1) everything I saw was just out of my comfortable shooting range during bow season, and 2) i passed up all the deer I saw at the beginning of the season thinking that I would see something bigger later. I didn’t. Next year I’m shooting the first deer I see … even if it is the size of a Chihuahua. The good news is that I finished 3 books and started a 4th (Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters from Prison“) during gun season.

One of the things that I love about Tapestry, the community of Christ that I am a part of, is the diversity of political thought that is a part of us. One of the members of the Leadership Team will summarize this thought with a statement that I love. He says:

If you are going to be a part of Tapestry you need to be okay being ticked off every now and then by something someone has said.

What this means today is that quite possibly half of my friends in Tapestry are very excited about the results of last night’s elections and the other near half might be in mourning and worried for the future of our country.

For those that are excited about last night’s elections, I hope that your thoughts and dreams that led you to vote the way you did turn out to be correct. I hope the next four years actually do increase the greatness of America. I would be very pleased to look back and end up believing this was a great choice.

For my friends who are mourning the results of last night I hurt for and with you. I always hesitate to say “well God is still on His throne” (even though it is true) because I feel like it can seem to dismiss someone’s pain and worse can lead to a mindset of doing nothing. I do however love the passage of scripture that I believe the saying comes from. In fact, I mentioned this past Sunday at the Tapestry Sunday morning gathering.

I believe the saying comes from Isaiah 6:1-9 which is written during a time of great mourning for God’s people. The popular king Uzziah had died and God’s people were disheartened. It led to some feeling a loss of control and uncertainty about the future. The passage’s context fits for me right now. Let me quote it with a little change of my own.

¹ In the year that [Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America], I saw the Lord, high and exalted,seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

One of the things I love about this passage is that while it brings comfort, it also brings discomfort. God’s comfort to Isaiah during a troubling time also brought trouble to who Isaiah recognized himself to be and that led to Isaiah going to do the work of God because of the comfort he received from God being on His throne. God being on His throne is a call to action as well as a source of comfort.

May all of us, both those who are glad and those who mourn, see examples of God on His throne this week and respond by being challenged and sent to do the work of His kingdom. May we hear the voices shout “Holy, Holy, Holy” and so vividly recognize that the whole earth is full of His glory that we can’t help but desire and act to be a part of extending that glory. May God being on His throne cause His people to fight for the weak and marginalized.

God is on His throne so be comforted … and let’s get our butts in gear and start doing the works of His kingdom.

NOTE – This brief post isn’t from something that happened today. Every now and then I want to post something that relates to a conversation I had during the day but if I post it during the actual day I feel will unintentionally hurt that person’s feelings. Therefore, I randomly pick a date in the future on which it will post. This could be one day or one year. Doesn’t matter. It just isn’t the day on which the post was published.

Every now and then I have to remind myself of the old saying.¹

Never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Today is one of those times where I need this reminder.

1. I believe George Bernard Shaw first published it but I am not sure [↩]