Category: Life

  • JATATD

    Last night’s sing-and-act-along performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Arlington’s Capitol Theater was a major success for the brand new Starlington Productions production company, selling out the theater. The gathered audience was enchanted by the singing of the two principal stars, Susan as the Narrator and Zachary as Joseph. There were also some very entertaining cameos by Matt as Pharaoh, Clara as the Baker, Cori as Reuben, Sara as the Butler, Parke as Jacob, Tyler as Benjamin, and many others.

    Susan’s performance as the Narrator was captivating — she clearly had learned all her lines, and had worked with a vocal coach to bring her A game to the show. She performed her costume changes with amazing fluidity, and her positive energy was infectious.

    Zachary’s vibrant tenor was well suited for the role of Joseph. His performance of Close Every Door in particular was hauntingly beautiful. Zachary brought a wonderfully collaborative and positive vibe to the production.

    I would highly recommend that you go see this production, but sadly, if you missed it, it was a one night only engagement.

  • Weekend Away

    Weekend Away

    We went away this weekend to spend time with two other couples, and log some good biking in Western Mass. We rented a house in Amherst that was near the Mass Central Rail Trail. Late on Saturday morning, we hopped on our bikes and rode 14 miles to the Williamsburg Snack Bar where we had a lovely lunch, after which we turned around and headed back.

    About halfway back, a large tree root that made a good sized bump in the trail caught me off guard, and I lost control of the bike, and fell. Thankfully, I fell in the dirt and weeds along the side and not on the pavement. The image above is of my shin, which is the most photogenic of my scars. Beyond that, my hip has a lovely bruise that is just starting to blossom a day later, and my shoulder, was pretty well wrenched from the incident. Nothing broken, but my ego probably suffered the most. (Shoulder is pretty painful, though). All my companions were very concerned and supportive, and helped pick up all the bits and pieces that came off the bike.

    Since nothing on the bike or me was actually broken, after a few minutes of calming down, I got back on the bike and rode the rest of the way home, knowing that at some point in the near future, everything would stiffen up and feel a lot worse. The rest of the ride was, happily, uneventful.

    At the encouragement of everyone, I let Susan take me to the clinic. We got in the car, and the directions told us it was 0.1 miles away. In the end, it probably would have been faster to walk, it was so close! They took some X-rays of the shoulder and saw nothing to be concerned about, and recommended ibuprofen, arnica gel, and icing.

    For dinner, we walked a little ways past the clinic and had beers and appetizers at the Hangar Pub and Grill, which is home to the Amherst Brewing Company, so we were able to get our passports stamped there. Then we had a lovely dinner at the Amherst Public House. When we were done with dinner, it was raining pretty hard, so the walk back was, um, refreshing?

    And then there were board games.

    The next day, the rest of the crew did another ~30 mile ride. Even without the accident, it’s doubtful that Susan or I would have felt up to another big ride. Instead, we went to visit the Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst College,

    which had a very manageable collection of minerals, fossils, etc. We enjoyed about 2 hours there, and then headed to Tree House Brewing Company in Deerfield.

    So this is not their flagship location in Charlton, but a newer facility. I’d always heard great things about their beer, but not so great stories about the Charlton facility, which could be overcrowded, with long lines, long waits, etc. Having never been to their Charlton facility, I can’t compare them; I can only say that our experience was great. The facility is huge, and it took some time to walk from the ample parking lot to the sunny, air-conditioned atrium taproom. We arrived shortly after they opened (noon), and were able to walk right up to the bar and order a beer without waiting, and then order a pizza, which was ready in about 15 minutes. The beer was terrific, and the pizza was very good. And we were able to get our passports stamped as well!

    A truly enjoyable weekend, with but one blemish. If I had been more alert, or less tired, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all. I’m grateful that my body took this more or less in stride, and seems to be recovering. It won’t be as fast as it would have been in my twenties, but that’s life.

  • Oliver!

    Oliver!

    For what you are about to receive
    May the lord make you truly thankful.

    from the lyrics of Oliver! from the musical Oliver!

    Last night, we went to see John Oliver perform standup comedy at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway. We used to watch The Daily Show pretty religiously back when Jon Stewart (cousin Jon, as we referred to him) was host. We followed the career trajectories of correspondents Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. And then we were given the gift of the Colbert Report, which was a magnificent creation. We dropped our cable tv subscription some time ago, but we watch a lot of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight pieces on YouTube these days. These guys are all well informed, well educated, bright, opinionated, witty, and able to present the most depressing news (well, bits of it) in a way that both informs and entertains.

    John is touring at least in part to support his staff during the current writer’s strike. Opening for John were Brooks Wheelan and local legend Eugene Mirman of Bob’s Burgers fame, who were both very funny. Wheelan’s most memorable bits were about drugs and alcohol, while Mirman’s were about trying to enroll his son in an exclusive preschool.

    After they had warmed up the crowd, John came on

    and entertained us with material ranging from the origin story of the British royal family, to Florida’s newly approved history curriculum, “educating” young Floridians about the benefits of being enslaved. As always, John’s acerbic wit, when applied to injustices great and small, can be very cathartic for me.

    I wanted to include a link to at least a small sample video from the current tour, but it must be that his lawyers are very expedient in issuing takedown notices, because I can’t find anything out there.

    Anyway, a great and memorable evening was had by all

    We chose to bike in to the show because we hate: trying to find parking in the area; paying for parking in the area; and getting out of the area in a car. We didn’t realize it at the time we headed in to town, but there was also a Sox game at the same time. So Lansdowne Street was packed as we walked our bikes down its length to get to The Fenway, and coincidentally, the game must have ended about the same time the show got out. So we were super grateful we had chosen to bike. On the way home, we essentially rode over to Mass Ave, and then took it all the way from Boston, through Cambridge, and right to Arlington Center. 6.5 miles in 33 minutes, which is not too bad, and very likely faster than it would have been by car.

  • The Ultimate Trip to England

    The Ultimate Trip to England

    You may be sensing a theme here in my titles. This time, we have followed Clara to Merry Olde England to watch her play in the WFDF World Under-24 Championships in Nottingham. Each (interested) country fields up to three teams — a Women’s (W) team, a Mixed (X) team, and an Open (O) team. The Open teams are generally all male, but the division is Open to all.

    I have endeavored to support my children on their journeys with sport to the best of my ability, and when the younger two hit upon Ultimate Frisbee, it was something of a revelation. There are three core values (that I see) that really differentiate Ultimate from other sports. First is Spirit of the Game, which is (I am not quoting chapter and verse here; just summarizing from a layperson’s perspective) all about sportspersonship and fairness — valuing spirited competition over the final W/L result. Players of both teams celebrate good play, regardless of side, as do fans. Well, at least players and fans who were brought up with the tradition. In general, it is an integral part of the coaching and training, but there are always outliers. I can remember attending one high school matchup where it felt like we were playing a hockey team that had just been given a disc and the rules of how to score. They were just bullies on the field, and their parents were just as vociferous and mean-spirited as the worst of youth sport parents. It felt exceptionally foreign and jarring, given my other experiences with the sport. In general, you would be very hard pressed to find a more collegial group of competitors.

    The second value that I see displayed over and over, is inclusivity. The Open division is truly open to all, though honestly, after high school where there is often only one team, you see few non-male players on an open team. But there are plenty (never enough, to be sure) of women’s teams, and what’s unique in the sport (well, I confess, I am not much of an expert) is that they have a mixed division (ok, ok, mixed tennis doubles comes to mind, ice skating, ice dancing, etc, but can you name other large team sports?) In this tournament, there were 22 countries represented, with 14 sending Women’s teams, 15 sending Open teams, and 16 sending Mixed teams. 10 countries fielded teams for all three divisions, but nine countries sent just one team, and of those nine, six were playing in the mixed division only. In what other sport would you see that? Many of the sponsors are vocal supporters of diversity and inclusivity.

    The final value that makes Ultimate special, is that it is almost exclusively self-refereed. Players call fouls on each other, and on themselves at times. When there is a dispute about a call, the players must work it out, and when they can’t, the disc goes back from whence it came, and play continues from there forward — a do-over of sorts. At some tournaments, there are now “observers,” who are there to assist the players working out disputes, and who may, if the players request, and if they had a good view of the incident, make a call. Watching players have to work things through is really pretty inspirational. You do not see tantrums, or hysterics. There is no “bad guy” (ref) to blame for bad calls. That aspect of play is simply absent. It is again something that is core to the values of Ultimate frisbee — fair play — and it is taught and encouraged at every level.

    At the end of the tournament, the three US teams racked up a combined record of 27-0 and each came out on top of their respective divisions, which is honestly par for this particular course. But for the first time, a US team also won their division’s Spirit of the Game award — the mixed team! After each game, each team sits down and awards points to the other in five categories: Rules, Fouls, Fairness, Attitude, and Communication. Add those five categories up, and you get a spirit score, and average that score over the games played, and the team with the highest score wins the Spirit of the Game award, and this award is represented with a trophy and medals for the players, just like coming out on top of the competition.

    But really, I came here to celebrate Clara and her team. As I mentioned in passing, the team didn’t lose a game, but not only that, they won with an average margin of victory of 10 points. That bests the Open team’s average margin (9) and the Women’s (8). So, for them to beat their competition so soundly, and still earn the Spirit of the Game medal is really pretty astounding.

    Here’s another observation. If you were to look at the player stats for the championship bracket, which the US team clearly dominated, you won’t see a US player on the board until 11th place (Go Henry!!) To me, that points to a supremely well-rounded team, where everyone is contributing. And there are lots of reasons for this, of course. First, the US has a deep pool of exceptional Ultimate players to pull from. But equally important (at least!) was the coaching staff, who were simply outstanding. This team had one weekend together about four weeks before the tournament, and they came a week before the competition started to get some practice together. And in those 9ish days, the coaching staff molded three exceptionally cohesive lines of eight players, and they pretty much rotated those three lines. Since there are seven players on the field at a time, one of those players sits out. They did have to deal with injuries and illness (Covid strikes again!), but they kept with this system throughout the tournament, and it certainly seems to have paid off. They also emphasized love and family in their community. We could not have asked for better!

    All in all, it was a glorious week of watching Clara and her teammates shine. Congratulations to them, and to the rest of Team USA!!

  • The Ultimate Road Trip

    The Ultimate Road Trip

    Our wristbands for entry into the tournament

    Well, we finally did it. Susan and I managed to get to watch Clara play in this year’s USA Ultimate Collegiate Championships. Her Northeastern University team, the Valkyries, have played at nationals 3 of the 5 years she’s been there, and of course, there were no nationals (or much of anything else) in 2020 and 2021. Clara’s team nominated her for a Callahan Award, and the best part of that is that they put together a highlight reel for voters to watch to assist in their evaluation of the candidates. All the videos are amazing, of course, but Clara’s is superb! This year, the tournament took place in Ohio, which seemed like a manageable drive. After we both were done with work on Thursday afternoon, a little before 3:00 p.m. we got in our car and headed west. We drove as far as Rochester, NY, getting off the road at around 10:00 p.m. We awoke the next morning at 5:00 and were back on the road by 5:30. We drove straight thru, with one fuel stop, to Mason, OH, just outside Cincinnati, and arrived minutes before the 1:00 p.m. opening pull in their game against Virginia. Just enough time to get our folding chairs, and a cooler full of Gatorade (and pickles!) for the team, out to the field.

    In this first game, Northeastern was seeded higher, and they did win with a final score of 9-8, which tells you it was a hard fought game that ended due to hitting the hard cap, rather than one team reaching 15 points.

    In their second game, against Georgia, the Northeastern Valkyries did not fare so well, eventually losing to the lower-seeded team, 9-14. That was a tough loss for the Valks, and they were not feeling great afterwards.

    On Saturday, after a night’s rest, they first faced higher seeded Stanford, and played a good game that ended with the Valks on the losing end of an 815 score. Not especially close, but the Valks played well, and felt good afterwards. That led up to their final game of pool play, which was against #2 seed Colorado.

    It was another well played game, and by half time, the Valks were down 6-8. In the second half, they managed to fight back to a 10-10 tie, then take the lead at 11-10. They pretty much traded points after that, and came away with the W in a nail-biter at Universe Point (15-14 final). That victory earned them a spot in the pre-quarters, and knocked Virginia out of contention (which Georgia somehow felt the need to Tweet about bitterly!).

    In their pre-quarter game against Carleton, the Valks started out in a 0-2 hole, but dug themselves out and went into the half ahead 8-6. But the second half ended up being more Carleton than Northeastern, and the Valks finished their season with a 10-15 loss. But they seemed quite pleased, as well they should, with it being their first visit to pre-quarters since 2008. Colorado, by the way, went on to play in the finals against North Carolina. The game is available on Ultiworld if you have a subscription.

    The game against Stanford was on the field that they were streaming from, so the game is available on YouTube if you care to watch. Watch the point starting at 1:11 for a lovely highlight.

    We also got to watch some of the later championship games and hang out a bit with Clara

    The athlete and her proud parents

    And Susan got to work on her vert:

    Disc was at about ten feet — impressive, no?

    The weekend involved driving a little over 1,800 miles spread over 4 days. It did not go well for the bugs who insisted on getting in our way.

    Time for a bath…
  • Design for Serviceability

    Design for Serviceability

    Panasonic Microwave

    About an hour into a brief, twenty-four hour getaway, I received a not quite panicked call from my mom, letting me know that her microwave (a Panasonic NN-SN733W, bought in August 2015) wasn’t working. She uses the microwave all the time, for heating up water to make tea, and even making a good percentage of her meals. It’s probably the most used appliance in her apartment. Which is mildly ironic, considering how dubious she was of the idea when I bought her her first one. She was a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to deal with it that day, but in the end was accepting of the situation.

    So today, after coming home, one of the first things I did was to take a look at her microwave. And as she had told me, it seemed completely dead — no clock, no light, no nothing. The outlet it was plugged into was good. I explained that generally appliances don’t fail like that. Maybe the turntable motor would fail, or the magnetron, or the control panel. But given that there was zero sign of life, it seemed likely that it was an internal fuse that had blown. So, I began to take it apart. There was one Phillips screw on the bottom of one side holding the shell of the case on, which I removed. But the other half-dozen screws were all security Torx screws! A sign that the manufacturer definitely didn’t want a consumer opening it up (but why have the one plain Phillips? That is a mystery…).

    When I got it open, I could see that the power supply circuit board did indeed have a fuse on it, and the fuse was in a fuse holder, rather than being soldered to the board. Hallelujah! There was hope! It was a ceramic fuse, though, so it wasn’t immediately obvious whether it was blown or not. But a quick check with an ohm meter showed it had blown.

    After returning from the hardware store, about 10 minutes later, I popped the new fuse in, and plugged it in briefly, just to see if the clock would come on, etc. And sure enough it did. So, I unplugged it, put everything back together properly (or nearly so), and had mom try it by heating a cup of water. And it worked! So, all is good, at least for the time being, and another microwave has been saved from the landfill/incinerator.

    But this begs the question — why?? Why make it so that the average consumer couldn’t replace the fuse? Why not make the fuse accessible without taking the whole shell off? A fuse is, or should be, a “user serviceable part.” I can’t quite imagine what the rationale is for making it this way. Is it in the hopes that people will just toss it and buy another? Why not solder the fuse to the board then? Is it to help keep appliance repair shops in business? Seems vaguely plausible, but unlikely.

    I do have the sense that a generation (or two…) ago, people were more accustomed to fixing some things themselves. I am also aware that those “things” were significantly simpler then. An electric stove had a power cord, and from there, the wires went to a bunch of resistive heating elements through a simple, electromechanical control, turning on and off various combinations of heating elements. And a thermostat for the oven. If there was anything else, it was a clock that operated on the 60 Hz AC signal. There were no circuit boards with touch panels, and fluorescent displays to break, which would have to be replaced in whole if something failed. But a fuse? Why bury that where it is unlikely to be discovered except by the most intrepid of owners. While I do appreciate the forward leaps we’ve experienced in functionality, I do believe a lot more could be done to make appliances more serviceable.

  • Another of My Favorite Things

    Another of My Favorite Things

    Maybe this is a series?

    Hamilton Beach HBB 909

    Growing up, my parents had a 14 speed blender — I think it was a Hamilton Beach. Each of the speeds had a name — things like blend, whip, puree, mix, etc. I think it had 7 buttons for the speeds, and a “High/Low” range switch that selected one of the two banks of verbs. I can only imagine that a marketing person had the job of coming up with 14 different verbs that defined some form of mixing, and somehow implied greater or lesser speeds. My parents hardly ever used it, though. It wasn’t something either of them was familiar with, so mostly it sat on the countertop looking modern (compared to the rest of the items there). They had received it as a gift from the realtor who sold them the house.

    Fast forward 15-ish years, with me in my first post-college job, and wanting a blender, mostly for making drinks that involved chopping up ice into tiny bits. So I wanted something heavy duty. I worked in a part of Boston that had a fair number of commercial kitchen suppliers nearby, so I went to one of those and purchased the above blender. I have little recollection as to what it cost. I’m sure it was, for me, quite a luxury purchase, but I wanted something that would be sturdy and lasting. This thing has a 3/8 HP motor and is built like a tank (in the U.S. of A. no less!). This would have been around 1990 or 1991. Sometime in its first few years of life, the “clutch” in the actual blending container became pretty stuck, and I went back to the same store and was able to buy just that part. It has been running smoothly ever since. But in the past month or so, the motor wasn’t always engaging with the clutch in the bottom of the container. And once again, 30+ years later, I was able to purchase repair parts for this thing and get it working reliably again.

    My repairs, as is often the case, didn’t go exactly smoothly. First, I was trying to loosen the clutch from the motor by turning it the wrong way. This caused me to take apart the unit a whole lot more than was necessary in the hopes that I could grab onto the other end of the shaft to stop it spinning. This resulted in the motor coming apart way more than I anticipated (brushes came out of the motor housing, even). I think I ended up putting it back together half a dozen times, or thereabouts, due to the motor running the wrong way (!), leftover washer, etc. But, in the end, it did all go back together, and is working well once again, with the clutch engaging well and turning the blades in the blender.

    I really appreciate things like this, that are simply well built, made to last, and made to be repaired. Commercial kitchen equipment is certainly significantly more expensive than home oriented versions, but it can pay off in the long run.

  • The Blizzard of ’22

    The Blizzard of ’22

    Late on Friday evening, 28 January 2022, it began to snow, and it snowed for about 22 hours straight. By the time I walked the dog around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, there were a few inches in some spots, but a lot was bare, owing to the winds. The bulk of the snow came during the next 12 hours. We live between Burlington, which reported 22″ as of 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Cambridge which reported 14″ as of 4:30. But certainly a fairly significant amount of snow fell after 4:30. As with many such events, it is hard to measure snowfall due to the wind. We had patches that were bare, and drifts probably up to 3′. And even though it was quite cold, and the snow was dry, the wind really packed it pretty densely in some areas, so it was heavy and rather hard to move.

    The night before, I attempted to start our snow blower. I hadn’t used it this season, and I don’t remember using it last season, though it’s certainly possible that I did. I didn’t run it dry, but instead put in the requisite fuel preservative. I know they say that ethanol free gas is better for such things, but I don’t see it for sale around here. Mind you, I haven’t done extensive research, but if it’s out there, it’s not obvious. Anyway, the snow blower wouldn’t start. Small engines and I are not on the best of terms, so I asked my neighbor to take a look. He had rescued my old one a couple of times before, and seems quite competent around such things. We tried a number of things, including siphoning out the gas and replacing it with new. But we had no luck. His feeling was that it was probably a carburetor issue, and getting to the carburetor was not obvious.

    Another good friend came by later in the evening. He is an engineer who grew up on a farm, and all this stuff is second nature to him. But even he could not get the thing to start. His diagnosis was the same — carburetor, and likely the problem was getting the fuel/air mixture out of the carburetor and into the cylinder. Fuel seemed to be moving in OK. So it was to be a manually cleared storm, which I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, with the forecast calling for 18-24″. It snowed pretty hard all day Saturday, but I made one pass at clearing the sidewalks before dinner. For the rest of it, we waited until the snow was over, which meant waiting until about 9:30. Susan and I, with some early help from Emma, then worked until about 11:30 to clear the snow. Here are some photos from before and after shoveling, and the following day.

    In the end, it might have been just as well that the snow blower wasn’t working. It would have been fine on the sidewalks, but it has struggled in the past with really dense snow. And that would have been frustrating. Doing it manually isn’t exactly fun, but at least I know pretty well what to expect.

    A replacement carburetor is on order, along with some specialized tools for cleaning the old one. That way if the cleaning goes well, we’ll have a spare at the ready for the next time things get clogged up. Never too old to learn new things, right? There were a couple of very helpful videos documenting how to get to the carburetor and how to clean it. Hopefully we will be ready for the next one.

  • The Mains Problem

    One night a few weeks ago, we lost power briefly. And then apparently again that night, but while we were asleep. A couple of weeks after that, we had a strange occurrence during the day which I first noticed because I heard some relays click like when power is turned off on some appliances. I was sitting in the family room, and tried turning on the TV, but it wouldn’t go on. I looked at the power strip it was plugged into, and there was no light. Tried resetting that, but nothing improved. I then noticed that some other things lacked power as well. So I went to the circuit breaker sub-panel upstairs. Nothing looked tripped, but sometimes those things are subtle. So I tried resetting the likely candidates. Then the unlikely ones. Then I went to the basement to reset the breaker that feeds the upstairs sub-panel. Still no improvement. At this point, I realized that other things were without power as well. The only thing that all this stuff seemed to have in common was the main circuit breaker. While I didn’t trace everything out, it seemed likely that one of our phases had become disconnected within that main breaker. At least I can’t think of another explanation consistent with the observed fact of a subset of circuits being dead. As much as I dislike doing so, I reset that breaker, and then all was well.

    I assumed it was a one-time bizarre event. Then about a week later it happened again. It still took me a bit to realize it was a recurrence of the same thing. After that, I began to make the possible connection to the power outage, and suspected that something had damaged our main breaker. I called an electrician, and left a message describing the symptom and my diagnosis. They never called back. Then this past Friday, it happened again. Then Saturday morning.

    At that point, my annoyance outweighed my rational fear, and after some research into circuit breaker compatibility, I headed to Home Depot and bought a replacement breaker. Shortly after I got home, it happened again, which made for a fine opportunity to swap out the breaker. So I did my best to take all the precautions I could, like standing on a wooden platform, wearing rubber gloves, using a plastic handled screwdriver, I opened up the breaker box and pulled out the main breaker and replaced it.

    That’s very easy to type, but in fact, after telling people it should be about 10 minutes, and that our internet connection should survive because all the essential equipment is backed up by UPS’s, two unexpected things happened. There was a weird bar blocking the breaker slot across from the main that was interfering with my removal, and about 3 minutes into the procedure, the UPS that protects the Verizon ONT gave out. In the end, it was about 20 minutes of sweaty, shaking hands work, but it seems to have been successful. Power has been stable for almost 72 hours now, which is a new record for the past week.

    So that adventure, while apparently successful, has no photographic documentation, due to my anxiety level. But a couple of weeks earlier, I was busy taking pictures of another home repair adventure in anticipation of writing up a blog post about it. Our kitchen drain had, seemingly all of a sudden (or nearly so) was completely clogged. This was Thursday night, and I arranged to take the day off to deal with it. I had purchased a drain auger a couple of years earlier, and used it successfully on another occasion. So I tackled the problem with a certain confidence, documenting the cluttered under-sink cabinet, its subsequent cleared out state, my careful prep work to minimize any mess (drain cleaning is yucky business), first view inside the clean-out, etc. But then after a couple of hours with the auger, and another attempt in the basement, where the kitchen drain has a long, nearly horizontal run, things hadn’t improved. And of course, to check, you have to put everything back together, and run water through to see if it drains.

    That took us to about noon time, and Susan and I had a planned lunch date. So I cleaned myself up, and we went to lunch. Then after lunch, I had to run an errand with Clara, and besides, I was tired and discouraged. So I gave Susan the number of our regular plumber and asked her to call. They came pretty quickly, and by the time I got home from my errand, the plumber had solved the problem, and was nearly packed up and ready to leave. I don’t believe he did anything fundamentally differently than I did, but he had a couple of advantages. Mainly, I think, is his experience with the feel of the auger, and knowing what’s likely a blockage vs. an elbow, etc. And persistence. Perhaps if I’d just kept at it a bit more, I’d have been successful. Anyway, the failure discouraged me from posting what was intended to be photos of my glorious success. But here, sans photos, perhaps that failure can be a footnote to my other, more successful endeavor.

  • A Shard of the Truth

    Have you ever caught some bright spot of light out of the corner of your eye? You move your head around to try and catch another glimpse; to find its source, but it’s gone. Maybe you forget about it, or ignore it, then all of a sudden it’s there again. It’s elusive, like a rabbit sitting perfectly still in a leafy yard, which you can’t see until it moves. You can’t locate it by force of will, but every so often, you are given a glimpse.

    Maybe you’ve had such an experience, and through some persistence and/or luck, you were able to find the source. Or in truth, what had seemed to be the source, only now you are holding a sharp splinter of glass, one edge of which would occasionally catch the sunlight — when the wind moved the leaves just so and you were gifted with that elusive glimmer. This sharp piece of glass, while it seemed so incredibly bright, was never the actual source of that light, only a tiny reflector. And yet, a moment prior, it seemed like it must have been.

    For those of us who are religious, whose belief in a higher power defies explanation and logic, I think that is what our relationship to the Truth of God is ultimately like. Many of us have been taught, from an early age, how deeply unfathomable God is. And as children, we accept this, in part because as children there’s lots we don’t understand. But I think as we grow older, and believe ourselves to be wiser, we lose sight of that truth. We lose that innocence and begin to fool ourselves into thinking that we do have some real insight into the nature of God.

    The pinnacle (or nadir, if you will) of such thinking is what leads to religious wars. When we have convinced ourselves deeply enough that we understand God, and those “others” don’t; that God is on our side and not theirs; it permits, or some believe demands, unspeakable acts against those we choose to label “other.” While certainly not an inevitable outcome of organized religion, it is an ever-present danger of those human constructs.

    More subtle, but far more insidious, are the myriad ways in which we judge others because of our own religious beliefs and traditions. Perhaps ultimately this is, in sum, the greater evil — that in the name of God, whose Truth we can only dimly perceive, we can so easily condemn others, when in fact all that any of us can possibly lay claim to is the merest glimpse of that Truth. We would be wise to be extremely cautious about doing so. Creation has been around for billions of years; human civilization only a few thousand. We still have so much to learn.

    Certainly there are some beliefs that civil society in general, and essentially all major religions, share. Killing is wrong. Taking things that belong to someone else is wrong. But even these crimes, which at first appear to be very black and white, turn grey when you scratch at them even a bit. Killing someone who intends to drive a car bomb into a crowded mall is probably less sinful than killing someone because you don’t like their haircut. A wealthy tax collector pocketing some of the money they collected from someone poor is probably more sinful than someone stealing a loaf of bread from a store so their family doesn’t starve. Once you get beyond that and into issues of who is allowed to love whom and how, for instance, you’re no longer even standing on shaky ground, but rapidly sinking in quicksand.

    There is a song, Cathedral by Crosby, Stills & Nash, with the lyric,

    Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
    For anyone to heed the call
    Too many people have died in the name of Christ
    That I can’t believe it all

    And while I certainly don’t feel the same way, and in fact consider myself a Christian, I find myself sympathetic to the sentiment all the same.

    I believe that a sincere belief in a God that is powerful enough to have created the universe demands of us a great degree of humility. If one truly believes in such a God, then by definition one cannot “know” such a God, or even the will of such a God. My father explained to me long ago the difference between praying for something with the words “if it is Your will” vs. “if it is according to Your will” because in the former case, one could afterwards claim to know the will of God, whereas the latter is at least a degree removed. He had much finer language to describe the difference, of course. Still, fundamentally, it is about having the requisite humility in the sight of an awesome God. Human language, like human understanding, is woefully inadequate for dealing with God, but sincere believers must do the best we can.

    None of this is to say that I find no value in organized religion. On the contrary, I find great value in it, and participate enthusiastically. As humans, with all our inherent limitations, we must work within the confines of those limitations to come to know God to the extent we are able. If people were capable of fully knowing God, we would all agree on things, and there could be one True Religion. But if that were true, then we would be equal to God, rather than created in God’s image.

    Given these limitations, the fact that there are so many different religions in this world makes sense. Different people are given different facets of understanding about God. People’s minds work differently; the cultures that we were brought up in are different; people’s needs are different. In a world that is populated with a host of imperfect and unique beings, we cannot expect there to be a single True religion. At best, we each are given a tiny piece of the Truth. And occasionally, when we faithfully and humbly work and worship together, we might temporarily assemble those pieces into a larger artifact, and use that to perceive some representation of a larger piece of the truth.

    I take great comfort from Paul’s statement to the early Christians in Corinth,

    For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

    1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

    Which brings me back to my shard of glass. At best it reflects a bit of the True light; it is not the source. But once we pick it up and pocket it, and claim it as our own, it ceases to even reflect that light, and reverts to being a weapon, just as likely to hurt us as others.