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One Battle After Another
Understanding the permanency of the internet, I usually I reserve writing a blog post for something with a long-term view, not reacting to every transgressive thing that shows up online. I will draft a post, then walk away, and sometimes when I come back to it, I am glad I didn’t post it. It doesn’t meet the bar of “what will someone in the future get out of this?” and “does it edify the reader?” or “Is the title misleading as to what the message is?” Of course, the other error is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. I really do have to get over myself.
With the infiltration of AI into our lives, I am wondering if I am making a mistake to not post more frequently, if for no other reason than to signal to others that this is a real human being, in this time and place, and not a manipulative chatbot.
A few things sent me along this line of thought. The first was watching the movie, “One Battle After Another”, once it started winning awards. I try to keep my finger on popular culture, and it was free on one of our streaming services, so I watched it. Seeing violence glorified (along with illegal immigration and drug trafficking) really didn’t sit well with me. You would think that we would recoil from violence and crime those who perpetrate it, that there is no justification for it, but as the expression goes, “When ‘it goes without saying, pretty soon it will have to be said” let me explain. When I was a young person in the 60’s and a teenager in the 70’s, there were radical groups who were robbing banks and killing police officers and bombing buildings. The scene in the movie when Perfidia Beverly Hills shoots and kills a security guard crawling across the floor? That type of thing really happened. And worse. And more than once.
The putative model for the fictional radicals in “One Battle After Another”, the Marxist far-left-wing Weather Underground, it fizzled out after 1977. Unlike the movie, no one hunted the radicals down and killed them. In fact, two members, Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers (son of the CEO of Commonwealth Edison and the beneficiary of an excellent legal defense) had their charges dismissed and went on to academia. Mr. Ayers famously said, “Guilty as hell, free as a bird” after his acquittal. When Barack Obama was running for president, there was some concern raised about his association with them, which didn’t gain any traction. Unlike the radicals, there is no apparent real-life parallel to the weird secret racist cabal in the movie, but I couldn’t say that anything like that never existed.
It left me in a state of deep sorrow.
Then there was an article in The Atlantic called “The People Who Marry Chatbots”, was so dispiriting it created a sense of urgency. I am not going to link it because I am sure it is readily accessible, pushed by an algorithm into gazillions of inboxes and feeds. Hopefully it is well understood now that chatbots are “yes-men” just validating whatever you say or think. A person who really loved you would have the courage to tell you when you are doing something wrong. I am thankful that the church is speaking out on the inhumanity of AI and how it is antithetical to the worth and dignity of the human person. Still, I grieved for the lost and vulnerable who have been sucked into trading real people, created in God’s image, for chatbots.
The final. self-imposed mistake: while waiting for new seasons of my favorite streaming shows to drop, I lost patience, succumbed to boredom and started watching “Industry”, a series which had run three seasons before I discovered it. A little background here – I spent more than a little bit of my career, not in investment banking, but providing outsourced services to clients like the fictional “Pierpont & Company”. During my career, I had pretty lengthy exposure working in white-shoe outfits like that, and as a service provider, how to unobtrusively blend into those environments, where I got a very close look at them. I was also young once, starting out in life and career, making mistakes, both personal and professional.
But the level of inhumanity towards other people portrayed in the movie, the article and TV series was chilling, the intense, reckless self-focus and cruelty was heartbreaking, and even frightening.
I am of a different time, but there were enough built-in structures that taught us about our world -school, media (including the still relatively new medium of television), the church. And of course, adults – who had lived through the events of history and learned their lessons. Young people today don’t seem to have any knowledge or experience of history, and apparently we have done a very bad job of transmitting history, and modeling leadership, humanity, justice and faith.
So, now we have young people who feel like it’s okay to lie and steal and take property that belongs to other people and to kill people who they disagree with. That they have no obligation to anyone other than themselves. To the point where they actually create simulated creatures to have “relationships” with. To the point where people who had nothing to do with any past injustices (like slavery) “owe” other groups reparations out of their “privilege”). As I write this, in Minnesota, dozens of Somalis and Somali immigrants have been convicted of fraud. It is now believed the level of fraud totals nearly $10 billion dollars and goes back to 2018. Immigration and Customs Enforcement swarmed Minneapolis/St. Paul. The scale of the crime is unprecedented and it is not unexpected that illegal immigrants should be dealt with in accordance with the law. Protesters predictably showed up, and a 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, was shot dead by an ICE agent. Her partner was standing in front of the car that Renee was using to block the street, heckling the agents, Renee disregarded orders to get out of the car and started it up. Shots were fired. Make no mistake, no one should lose their life in this way. I don’t believe the tactics used by ICE are all justifiable. But before this happened, law enforcement had become the enemy. Officers have their faces and addresses posted online and receive death threats. Their families are not safe.
Even for the faithful, it is easy to feel helpless and hopeless and wonder “where is God?” when we are surrounded by depravity and doing things that are clearly against His Law and good will for us.
There is sin, and evil in the world. When we let our circumstances – good or bad – define who God is, the Devil, the Prince of Lies, tries to persuade us that we do not need God or cannot trust God and disrupts our faith.
In church, I found solace and courage while I was waiting for my programs and podcasts to resume on KFUO https://www.kfuo.org/ (“Christ for You” broadcasting since 1924). Following the church calendar, for the twelve days of Christmas, programming is devoted to celebrating the birth of our Savior. After Epiphany, “Sharper Iron” started again with exegesis on Genesis. First, an episode on how the first words of Scripture, fit into the rest of the story. Moses is traditionally and historically held to be the scribe of the first five books of the Bible. Then as each daily episode progresses, the pastors help braid together the truths contained in it, starting with who God is. Because inasmuch as people try to treat Genesis as a ‘textbook’ about the process of creation, it is far more revealing about eternal, almighty, ever-present God Our Father, the Word (His Son), and the Holy Spirit.
Hearing God’s Word brought me back to the reality of our world, the reality of the love of God, and confidence to pray as He commands. To rely on His promises, and not on my thoughts or feelings. I may not be able to discern the rule of God, His control over all things, but it is there. To trust Him, to believe in His Son, the Word made Flesh, our Savior, and in the Giver of Life, the Holy Spirit. Listening to the pastors teach on the very first words of scripture brought me back to the reality of creation, and redemption, and the promise of Christ’s return and the eternal Kingdom.
When our pastor preached a sermon on praying for all of our leaders, some parishioners said to him they were not going to pray for leaders they disagreed with. His response: it is even more important to pray for them, because they need God’s guidance. https://www.kfuo.org/2023/01/07/concord-matters-010723-luthers-small-catechism-the-lords-prayer-4th-petition-giving-thanks-even-our-government/
Christ exhorts us to pray for our enemies. Yes, very difficult to do. But – we dare not begrudge others the grace that has been given to us in Christ Jesus. We are all sinners. We would suffer eternal death and condemnation but for the grace of Christ, paying the penalty for our sins on the cross. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.
God uses our trials to bring us closer to Him. In days of old, He has spoken to us through the prophets, but in these latter days, He has spoken to us through his Son. God sent His Word, His Son into the world to save all people.
After focusing on the Incarnation of our Lord — God becoming flesh — during the 12 days of Christmas, the season of Epiphany emphasizes the manifestation or self-revelation of God in that same flesh of Christ. During the season of Epiphany, we are reminded that about how Christ was revealed to first Gentiles, the Magi. They were astrologers, always watching the sky. They saw a star that didn’t move with the rest of the stars, but was fixed. They marveled at this – who can make this happen? – and learned enough about the promised Messiah from the Jews to go and look for themselves, to see who controlled the stars. They knew enough to know they were going to see a powerful king, and brought tribute and gifts. They came away transformed.
I pray that all will hear the truth about our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That the reality of the Word of God will touch your lives and draw you to our Savior, our Redeemer, our only hope.
Christian
There is a commercial for Chase apps on television right now, there are two little girls walking around on opposite sides of the street with their mothers, each pair going door to door with a little wagon full of chocolate bars for some fundraiser. At the outset of the commercial, the mothers wave at each other, but the little girls give each other chin thrusts worthy of Joe Pesci in the movie “Goodfellas”. Background music is a song with the refrain, “I’m the champion, champion, I’m number one”. One girl is using the Chase mobile app and it appears this is why she is able to sell her wagon load of faster than the other girl. quickly, who is portrayed held back by neighbors, good customers who do not have the app and are giving her currency. At one point, a man is pulling some cash and change out of his pockets, which falls on his porch. The little girl, with her hand out, rolls her eyes and gives a look of pure loathing and contempt to this man and another, presumably to her mother, that seems to say “can you believe this guy?” Charming. You have come to this man’s home and asked him to buy some of your chocolate for your team, and he is doing just that, and this is how you behave towards him, to his face.
I wonder if anyone else sees this commercial through the same lens, or if there are whole generations of children who have not been brought up to interact with other people, kin or neighbor, friend or stranger, as anything other than a means to an end instead of a human being that God loves. Of course, we can’t expect children to know how to view other human beings unless we teach them, particularly by modeling that behavior for them.
Let me start from the place that we can no longer assume that anyone has sufficient cultural literacy (to say nothing of actual Christian catechesis) to know the very basics about Christianity. We humans are created by God in His image, and since the Fall, God has been reaching out to His people, to bring His people and all of His creation to back to Himself. He spoke to His people through the prophets, but in these latter days He has spoken to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. All who believe in the gospel will be God’ children and have eternal life. The Nicene Creed is at the bottom of this post.
As we confess in the creeds, we are all sinners, all have fallen short of the glory of God. We sin against God in thought, word and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition, and that is why God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to take our punishment, to die for the sins of the world, and rise from the dead on the third day. In baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and become part of the body of Christ. God the Son, and all who believe in Him have forgiveness of their sins and eternal life, now and in His eternal kingdom. Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, to bring all things back to Himself, and His Kingdom will have no end.
My parents met in their sophomore year of college in the 50’s, and married at ages 24 and 25 after a long courtship that lasted through college and my father’s required military service. My mom taught Sunday school, my father was a deacon and elder in the church, and to people who knew him best, he carried his faith with him into every aspect of life, although it was not always evident. Although he could gin up ribald jokes, and some of his phrases by today’s lights qualify as politically incorrect speech, Dad truly desired to serve the Lord. He took risks for, and stood up for (again, 21st century term) marginalized people. Not in a way that was for virtue signaling, but because it was right. And he didn’t draw attention to himself. If he saw a good professional, he would hire them no matter race, color or creed. If a Chicago-based congregation needed worship space and our sanctuary was available after our services, they could use it. He was sensitive to welcoming people, treating them like anyone else. These fellow Christians using our facilities happened to be all Black, but they were Christians first and foremost. In the early 1970’s, the civil rights movement still very active, and Dad was very attuned to the realities of modern life, especially the political and social realities and the racially charged atmosphere of Chicago and its suburbs. But Dad walked the talk: Christ is the Lord of all. And the church is not a political organization.
Over my life I have come to realize how well the under shepherds in the church of my childhood worked to form the people of God. When I was in my early 30’s, I joined the Lutheran church, and due to my baptism and formation in another mainline liturgical Protestant denomination, it was not a difficult transition spiritually. I was not aware there was a schism in the Lutheran Church that led to a split into two bodies. One day, around 1993 I think, someone casually mentioned that the body I was now a part of, the Missouri Synod, did not ordain women. Wait, what?
As a child growing up, I had seen maybe one or two female pastors. I only dimly remember it because they did a workmanlike job of leading worship and it didn’t cross my mind that it was remarkable. We were focused on the Scriptures – in that venerable that mainline denomination, in those days, from the time a child could competently read, about 3rd or 4th grade, they were presented with their own Bible. The importance of the Word of God was continuously reinforced at home, in church, in our lives. “The Kingdom of God is coming, indeed without our prayer, but we pray to be a part of it.” The characteristics of who is preaching the Word cannot overtake the Word.
Fast forward to today. That church that I grew up in was closed and the last service was held in 2024. The building that our congregation completed in 1971, after worshiping for a long time in the local middle school, was torn down shortly afterwards. Even though my folks had attended a different church in another town since the 1980’s until their deaths, and I had been a Missouri Synod Lutheran for decades, seeing that building demolished was still like a death, but a death that happened some years prior, and now the empty body, long devoid of its spirit, was also gone.
After Dad’s death in 2012, I went to a service at that old church. It was good to see a few familiar faces from very long ago, but it was disturbing to hear these same people being led in a service of what sounded like affirmations – “Lord, help us to become the people we want to be” – not the Word of God, not the Law, not the Gospel. I was confused from the start, maybe in denial – looking at the bulletin. It looked like it had the vague outlines of a liturgy, but that was it. The woman leading the service, I thought, she must be an interim or lay leader? Didn’t I hear there were interim clergy filling in at the local churches? Maybe this was an aberration.
There was a lot of talk about the food pantry, the clothing ministry, all of the good things they were doing for the community, but no mention of the Lord we serve. This is not the church. This is like Rotary, or Habitat for Humanity. The church performs charitable works in the name of our risen Lord and Savior. Without Him, “all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags, we wither like a leaf, we are carried away by our iniquities”. We have violated the First Commandment and made gods of ourselves.
Some time later, I went back to that church to an Advent service, thinking maybe that earlier visit was a fluke. There was no mention of the long-awaited Savior, or our need for one. Instead, the same woman talked about Mary and “the Patriarchy”. I waited. Jesus’ name came up in the hymns, but it seemed incidental. It was then that I realized, the church of my youth was absolutely gone. I was in a strange place.
I took some time to research what happened and learned that apparently this body had also split into two entities, and my old church had become of the type that religion writer Terry Mattingly might call “NPR at Prayer”, back in the 1980s when my parents decamped. This former church had become a place where , as H. Roland Neibuhr wrote, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/955337.The_Kingdom_of_God_in_America
I started this post with my sorrow and dismay over a commercial where little girls appear to be completely focused in on themselves, to the exclusion of others, and their mothers don’t seem to know they should be doing anything to countermand it. I mourn that our culture reinforces the ideas that only ‘champions’ are of value; that there are churches claiming to be Christian who preach that one can be saved by their own works – did Christ die for nothing? That it doesn’t matter what you actually do, or if it is a sin, or why (because you can justify yourself), what matters is that some people think you righteous by some current standard, and that you post about it, and you will live forever. See: First Commandment.
Decades ago I crossed over a then-short theological bridge from the church of my youth, to the safe harbor of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and I didn’t realize that bridge fell down, and the body behind it sunk into oblivion.
That building is gone, along with the false teaching that occurred when the body lost its way. But – the Gospel is still being proclaimed, in all of its truth and power, in other places. But – the Word of God is eternal. The Lord does not desire the destruction of the lost and the wicked. Faith is the work of God the Holy Spirit.
Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7)
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11).
THE NICENE CREED
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
The Lesson of History – Amazing Grace
Summer 1972, Illinois
My beloved Grandpa used to let one or two of his grandkids at a time stay at his house, and during the summer before I entered 7th grade, I was enjoying my coveted turn. At 12 years old, I got to drive his car! We kept that a secret until after his death in 1991. Something else that came back to me recently – Grandpa and I watched the 1972 Democratic National Convention on TV together.
Grandpa was an intelligent, kind, curious, and courageous man. He was a world traveler in a time when it was very unusual. After my grandmother passed away in 1964, he took a job in Germany for two years before retiring. While his son, my uncle, was in Viet Nam flying for the Army during the war, Grandpa went there to visit my cousins and also to go to Asian countries in the region. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what it meant that Grandpa had set foot in places like Laos and Cambodia in the 60’s, and lived to tell about it. He would bring me a doll or figurine from each country in the world he visited, and I have an extraordinary collection of those dolls. I treasure an old passport of his with all the stamps in it. Grandpa witnessed a lot of history in his long life.
Growing up, television was controlled in my family by the adults. We had to get grown-up authorization to turn it on, and then since it was in the family room, whatever was being watched had to be deemed suitable by my parents. We were a family of readers, so it wasn’t like we were clamoring to watch TV. I don’t have a recollection of cartoons other than on Ray Rayner, the long-running WGN children’s show. My younger brother, however, wanted to watch Batman, so the day that program was on (in the afternoon as I recall), then the TV might stay on just until Dad came home from work.
All this background is to highlight the fact that because Grandpa, so wise and interesting, felt it was important to turn on the TV and watch the 1972 DNC, I paid attention. Nonetheless, I was baffled by what was on the screen. Lots of shouting, the speeches, the camera panning from one crowd or speaker to the next, it was really hard to follow. Despite my youth, I was not without bias – DNC to me was shorthand for rioting and lawlessness. Not long after the infamous 1968 DNC in Chicago, I somehow badgered my mother into going downtown to get the new Twist-n-Turn Barbie which was only available there. I still remember the destruction that still confronted us in the Chicago’s Loop, we got the doll and returned home immediately. I will also never forget my father’s reaction when I showed him my new doll and he excoriated my mother for taking me there FOR A DOLL.
Whatever night of the 1972 DNC we were watching, it went on until late at night, and Grandpa didn’t say much, but what he did say (that I remember) was “these people let themselves get carried away by their emotions. They are not thinking anymore, it is like a mob mentality.” Very late at night, Grandpa finally said, okay, that’s enough, and shut off the TV. Then I started 7th grade, Nixon won re-election, I got yet another foster sibling; broke my foot emulating Olga Korbut, the Soviet gymnast in the 1972 Munich Olympics, which were forever marred when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team, who were all killed during a rescue attempt.
In January 1973, Nixon announced the end of hostilities in Viet Nam; after growing up in Thailand my cousins came back to the United States where inflation was spiraling out of control. As they tried to cope with it, Mom decided to go back to work at a local hospital because she could get health insurance for everyone, even the foster kids, as part of her compensation, and Dad chose a station wagon for his company car.
Over fifty years later in 2024, deja vu. I see politicians talking about solutions that have been tried before, and didn’t work, and wonder why. (C’mon man, you lived through that too! You know that’s not going to fly!) But I also look back over my life and I see how despite our grievous sins and failings, our poor decisions and self-centered actions, through it all, “God works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28).
Joe Biden has had a long, successful career in public service. The job of President, being the leader of the free world, is a very tough one, and all you need to do it look at the photos of former presidents who entered office at relatively young ages, and what they looked like when they finished their term(s).
At age 81, finally becoming President, Biden has earned the right to be frustrated that he had not achieved his goals. But no one has the right to just issue executive orders against one group of people over others. When the Supreme Court inevitably strikes them down, he rails against the Court, and does whatever he wants anyways. In a speech at HBCU Morehouse College, Biden effectively said to Black Americans, your white countrymen hate you. This wasn’t some well-meaning gaffe that Joe Biden is famous for – someone wrote this speech, and he delivered it in all of its bitter, divisive, false invective.
This is not certainly Joe Biden at his best, and this is not even the Joe Biden we saw at the beginning of his presidency. The day after the debate, such as it was, that Biden haw called for with Donald Trump, the President was at a campaign rally, and he seemed ‘better’. But. When you are President, you can’t have a bad day. Our enemies, without and within, are resurgent and if they see the government and our social fabric as weak, we are in danger. Today, July 11th, 2024, speaking after the NATO summit, President Biden mixed up Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and Russia’s Putin, to gasps from the assembled press, and his own Vice President with Donald Trump. Enough.
I do not want to see Donald Trump become President either. I realized I still have the capacity to be stunned when Trump’s second ex-wife, Marla Maples, said she’d happily serve as his Vice President. (Marla Maples?) Perhaps it was Russian disinformation? But given the grotesquely unqualified family members he had running the country the last time, she may indeed have a shot.
God help us!
It is at times like these when I am reminded the job of a Christian is to pray. Not to lean on our own understanding, but to seek God’s will in His Word. The Holy Scriptures, and the Word made flesh, Christ our Lord. Not to trust our feelings above all things, but to put our faith in our Creator and Redeemer first. To use the gifts of rational thought to align our words and actions with God’s will, and to put our God-given emotions in their proper place. We can be angry and not sin. We can be sorrowful and yet purposeful and hopeful.
“Through many dangers, toils and snares, we have already come. T’was grace that brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home.” As dark as things seem, God is in control. That is a difficult truth to hear and absorb when it feels like we are surrounded by evil. But it is the truth.
Owning Our Decisions
“Moral Hazard: In economics, the term “moral hazard” refers to a situation where a party lacks the incentive to guard against a financial risk due to being protected from any potential consequences; such as the consequences being borne by someone else. “
Lately it seems there is a constant volley of actions by the Biden Administration to shift other people’s decisions onto ordinary Americans who didn’t have a say in them. The latest is the attempt to cancel the student loan debt of millions of borrowers, for no apparent reason other than they have been paying for a long time.
I was very, very fortunate that my parents set aside money for each of their children to get a bachelor’s degree, at their alma mater. Graduate school was not explicitly in their plans, although my late father earnestly hoped that one of us kids would be a doctor, whereupon the money for medical school would somehow be found – that didn’t happen. It was clearly understood that college education was for professional pursuits, and although my fantasy was to be a journalist, I entered a very technical major.
I did end up going to graduate school and borrowing money to do so. The decision in part prompted by the terrible recession of the 80’s I was about to graduate into, and evidence that it would really help this Baby Boomer stand out in a sea of other job seekers. This was not part of our family’s plan and I could not look to them to fund this. College costs were rising fast, and the funds my folks had carefully stewarded looked like they wouldn’t last. for the rest of the kids In this context, my senior year of undergrad, and my brother’s freshman year, we took the plunge into guaranteed student loans.
At the same time, interest rates were also soaring and one could earn 18%, 19% even 20% on certificates of deposit. My grandmother came up with the idea for my parents to take us off their tax returns as dependents, put the remaining college fund in high-yield CDs pegged to mature with the loans, and use the proceeds to pay off the loans interest free before the first payment came due. I remember being at the bank with Dad, he cashed in a matured CD to pay off the $2,500 loan for my senior year. The banker, Nancy, was confused – most people would get a payment coupon book, not come in to pay a loan off. Nancy thought we had to pay some interest (nope) and after a long discussion we got that sorted.
Dear Reader, by now surely you have gathered that I grew up in a family with parents and grandparents and relatives who transmitted other important values and practices. When I made mistakes and life’s inevitable misfortunes befell me, I had my family to help me figure out how to manage through it. I am very aware that not everyone is so blessed. You also probably have done some quick math and determined the educational ecosystem I matriculated in, and in particular the guaranteed student loan program, is very different today from four decades ago.
Although had a teaching assistantship, a partial scholarship, a stipend, and part-time jobs, I still ended up with $18,000 in student loan debt for grad school, a large sum in those days. But I also graduated into an improving economy with these credentials. After nearly forty years, I can honestly say this was a great decision and made a huge difference the additional education has made over my career.
Paying back those student loans was not easy, especially early on. My first professional job paid $27,000 per year, which was actually a decent salary in the 80’s, but the payments were scheduled over 10 years and over $200.00 per month. Over time, my income rose, but in the beginning, I took a couple of deferments. Eventually, I made that last payment. I was trying to recall exactly when that was – it was over the original 10 years since the deferments extended the repayment schedule – maybe 15 years?
Whenever that last payment was made, at no time did I ever think, gee, I don’t make enough money and can’t or won’t to pay this debt I incurred. Nobody put a gun to my head to go to graduate school and borrow money. I couldn’t live with myself being a deadbeat – even if I could, student loan debt was not dischargeable in bankruptcy. No, I had to ‘suck it up’ and live with not being able to have this or that, because I have to pay my bills. Was it hard? Yes. Were some of my bill payments late? Yes. But I recognized how very fortunate I am, and that the decisions I made were mine to live with.
NPR recently ran a piece about Biden’s pledge to cancel student loan debt, and one of the people interviewed started out telling a story similar to mine – that her parents had paid for her undergraduate education. Her BA, was in the arts. She believed she needed an advanced degree, like an MFA, to ‘get anywhere’ in the field. So, she borrowed a very large sum of money – if memory serves, something like $130,000 – to go to a high-profile school, and then discovered that she cannot make enough money in an arts job, even a prestigious one, to pay off this debt. And so, she NEEDS to have her student loan debt canceled, because she made a series of decisions, perhaps miscalculations, that did not turn out as she hoped.
So, she thinks her debt is now the debt of the taxpayers, who were not a party to her decision to take on this debt.
I could see canceling debt for certain categories of students – medical professionals who agree to work in underserved areas (“Northern Exposure’, etc.); military service personnel and first responders; I could also see relief for bona fide low income students like Pell Grant recipients.
But whatever the framework, above all, there must be informed consent. This means, as has always been the case, that our representatives in Congress need to approve such relief, not the President unilaterally turning private debt into government grants. The Supreme Court already weighed in on his first attempt as unconstitutional, President Biden just ignores that, goes again, and uses language that suggests that these borrowers have been “victimized” and have to be “made whole”, because they have been “paying for a long time.”
There has been very little research on this, perhaps because rising student loan delinquencies are a recent phenomenon. Indeed, college costs rise at a rate far above other costs. Indeed, the government got out of the business of guaranteeing student loans and prescribing the terms around them (as they did back in my student days). Now the loans are private contracts between banks and borrowers, with few exceptions. Some of the relief has been directed at students at schools that were not accredited or used deceptive practices to get students to attend them.
There will be people who are in need of, and deserving of, student debt relief. My heart goes out to families trying to give their children a better life. I dearly hope that everyone who can and wants to pursue higher learning finds a way to do it. But making a decision that doesn’t turn out doesn’t automatically turn you into a victim deserving of a taxpayer rescue. We all need to own our decisions.
The Wages of Ignorance
It personally baffles me why anyone would forgo an opportunity to learn, to go to school, to listen to a learned scholar or artist, to travel or try something new. I hear about students using ChatGPT to do their homework and it saddens me, for whom the work of learning – memorizing multiplication tables or verses from The Ancient Mariner or the Creeds of the Church or the periodic table of the elements – brought with it a sense of empowerment.
My family’s relatively short history in America may inform this view. After decades of war with Sweden, Norway was decimated. Life under Swedish oppression (which ended May 17th, 1905) was tough – Norwegians including my forebears, spent life proscribed by their overlords in myriad ways, including who could get an education and to what level. Despite this, they found a way. The church played an important role in educating my Norske ancestors. Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, made the education of both boys and girls key to reading and understanding the Scriptures and creating vocations for all of God’s children. Not seeing an end to life under the boot heel of oppression, part of my family tree fled Norway to freer shores, which is why I am an American.
Now free in the new world, education in any form was a blessing of God and a treasure, worth any sacrifice. Especially with the ‘younger’ generation who were privileged to be born here, they were held to high standards. Keen to secure their futures in the new world, and particularly when it came to college, they studied things like engineering (to this day the family is absolutely lousy with engineers), architecture, accounting – the things that would secure proper, fulfilling professional lives. But practicalities aside, they certainly treasured their agency, to think and choose freely, to learn, speak without fear of reprisals, to wonder and dream – “what if?…”
Tracing the path trod by my immigrant ancestors (who I knew as a young person, I am ‘not that far from the boat’) I learned to read before I started school, got my own public library card in 1st grade. In the Protestant tradition, and when I was in 3rd grade – the age judged to be sufficiently competent to read the Holy Word – I received my own Bible in church. Learning was 24/7. I love to learn things. I love to rediscover things that I had learned but forgotten, when I stumble upon an occasion to revisit a topic.
I came of age before cable news, the internet, smartphones, Twitter, Insta, on and on…and when the free press was flourishing. While not immune to the seductive charms of social media, I believe I can still see when something is just not right.
When I was a pupil in Illinois, to graduate from 8th grade and rise to high school, one was required to pass the Constitution test. We had Civics (also called Social Studies). Several times a day, usually when I make the mistake of looking at the news on my phone or laptop, I have had occasion to wonder if some of our politicians have any idea what the Constitution says. As it is 2024 and we are headed into an election year, am going try to stay out of commenting on national politicians. An example from Chicago, Illinois:
With the unprecedented surge of irregular migration at the southern US border, mainly via Texas, Arizona and California, governors are overwhelmed and giving migrants transport to go elsewhere. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is struggling with an influx of migrants to the Second City, as are other mayors throughout the US. Mayor Johnson first tried to build migrant camps in various wards and to commandeer community resources – without notice or input or engagement by the communities.
The Constitution came to mind when Mayor Johnson took over one such Chicago neighborhood Park District facility where senior citizens received nutrition support like subsidized meals, pupils with special needs attended after-school programs, and the community had spent out of their own pocket to do repairs and maintenance because the City wouldn’t pony up to fix things. Johnson seized it, locked out the citizenry,
Understandably, this met with significant opposition from the community. In addition to seizing something that belongs to the citizenry and residents – many of the neighborhoods Johnson has inveighed upon have already suffered from decades of disinvestment. They were outraged Mayor could somehow find hundreds of millions of dollars for new migrants (Illinois Gov. Pritzer going the the state’s ‘couch cushions’ for emergency funds, much of which was leftover COVID relief money) – but could not find money for addressing the longstanding needs of Chicago residents and taxpayers that he has pledged to support.
In this context, here is an exchange reported in the Chicago Tribune, January 23, 2024:
What? No. And please, before you start with the trolling, what Mayor Johnson seems to be saying is, the Governor and the state can do whatever it wants, anywhere, anytime. Governor is not a synonym for King, and if it’s true that Mayor Johnson is a former teacher, he should know that.“Pritzker called out the plan as flawed and said Johnson has not pinpointed ways state funding can help shelter and support asylum-seekers.
“The city has not told the state where they would like us to put our resources to build new shelters,” Pritzker said during an unrelated event in Chicago on Monday. “So we can’t help if they don’t identify those locations.”
Asked for a response, Johnson’s office said that Pritzker and the state have the authority to “fund, stand up and operate a shelter” in any city in Illinois, including Chicago.”
There is a dystopian show called “Years and Years”, set in the present/very future. In Britain, the people have lost what we would consider their Fourth Amendment rights. At one point, they are forced to share even their private homes with strangers. The government decides if you have too much space and sends over people who need housing to live with you. In other plot lines, which occur in a timeline from 2019 to 2034, these infringements on individuals’ liberties and boundaries came about because of a series of events that led countries to elect leaders who were authoritarian in different ways. No one seems to understand the concept of the rule of law and the power of the citizenry that they have unwittingly forfeited.
Today there are leaders who are saying and writing things that are simply not true, and an educated populace – not Rhodes scholars, but 8th graders who have passed the Constitution test – should be able to spot a lot of the misinformation and elevate it for reasoned debate. Instead, the ones who assert the rule of law are called inhumane and racist and the debate shifts from what is the fair and legal way to handle a humanitarian and security crisis is shifted to virtue-signaling, and abrogating of the rights of the residents, taxpayers, and citizens as well as seizure of what rightfully accrues to them. The focus on the urgent – the surge of migrants into Illinois – obscures a critical, fundamental shift that is going unchallenged. If the federal government, which is invested with sole authority and responsibility in the matter of immigration, is unwilling to provide funding for these migrants, it cannot be forced onto the backs of the states and ordinary citizens.
People of good will – Christian or otherwise – recognize their duty to help the poor and needy. However, it is not wrong to follow the law, and to distinguish between those who are simply scofflaws and desperate and needy migrants eligible for asylum under the law. Recent illegal migrants from China and Russia, for example, are not poor or needy. Indeed, a recent episode of “60 Minutes” showed Chinese migrants who paid tens of thousands of dollars to ‘coyotes’ be smuggled into the United States. The route for this deluxe illegal entry is to fly to Ecuador (no visa entry requirement), stay in hotels and be ferried by private cars to the US border, where they dump their Chinese passports by the border fence, to erase a means of verifying their identity and vetting their claims to asylum, which at this time would not be heard for years because overwhelming spike in illegal migration. Even if they were subject to removal, the Chinese government will not repatriate these citizens “because we don’t know if they are Chinese”. It is estimated 30,000 Chinese have taken this route to enter the US.
On the other extreme, politicians are talking about creating a ‘Red Army’-like paramilitary apparatus that will round up millions of non-citizens and deport them, and criminalize anyone who aids them. One can imagine a totalitarian dragnet that snares many innocent people, and creates a horrifying pall over legitimate humanitarian work out of fear of being sent to a gulag for being a good Samaritan, for advocating for the oppressed and needy, even for expressing a point of view. As I write this, a Russian-American has been detained while visiting in Ekaterinburg for donating fifty dollars to support Ukraine during the war. On it’s face, not directly about the immigration situation. But an example of the kind of tactics being openly mused over by politicians.
Pray God will guide us in our pilgrim walk, for His will to be done in all things. Lutherans have the gift of St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’, out of which Luther elucidated the “Two Kingdoms” philosophy, in the Reformation. At the beginning of this post I mentioned that Luther (along with Melancthon) was instrumental in promoting systems of literacy and education for all people, first and foremost to spread the Gospel, but also to help us understand while the Lord of all rules all, the Lord rules two kingdoms in very different ways:
- Earthly Kingdom: God governs this realm through secular government, employing law and the sword.
- Spiritual Kingdom: God’s rule in this sphere operates through the gospel.
In order to understand how we live in the Two Kingdoms, we need to turn to the Word. We pray for just government, that we may lead peaceful and godly lives. For leaders of nations to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their people. For this we need an educated populace. But first and foremost, for all people to come to a knowledge of the love of God in Christ.
Which Passes All Understanding
It has been nearly 12 years since I last wrote in this platform, in 2011. Looking back on those entries, it is amazing to see the distance I have traversed. My sweet father-in-law died in 2011. I endured the death of my own beloved father in 2012, and in retrospect I think I buried my grief in work, or tried to find some meaning and purpose in what I had spent most of my life focused on, that I thought I could control, my work. I would encounter things that would have caused me great anxiety, and think, “my Dad is gone. I have lived through that”, which would usually cause me to put whatever it was into perspective, but also to turn to the Lord, who had Dad with Him. Anyone who has lost a parent, at any age, no matter the type of relationship you believe you had with that parent, you become part of a group that doesn’t allow an exit. You pass through a one-way threshold that changes you. By age 52, I had been through bitter grief and disappointment. Each time I leaned into my faith, and in retrospect I could see God’s hand in my suffering, and I learned to accept that God is in control, and that is a hard thing to accept when bad things happen. On this side of the cross I will not necessarily understand His will.
Then Dad died, age 79, four years after successful treatment. He had survived his first occurrence of cancer at age 56, and then was miraculously in remission for nearly two decades. It didn’t seem real. Like many who have lost a loved one, you can forget they are no longer with you, especially when the loss is fresh. And when it hits you, the absence is excruciating. My mother decided not to have my father’s urn interred (a story for another day) and put him in the dining room of our family home. She would put his Shriner’s fez on the urn, or his horned Viking ‘helmet’, and at first every time I saw Dad’s urn I was felled by grief. I could barely look. My father, who had been with me through everything in life, who loved me unconditionally, a part of him remained, but he was not here.
At the same time, all I could think about was the resurrection when Christ comes again, which hadn’t been much of a focus before. I believe in the promise of eternal life, I knew my Dad was with the Lord, which is the interim destination. But I wanted him back with me, in the promised restored, renewed world, where every tear would be wiped from our eyes. I got to the point where I was actually trying to envision what would happen if, say, though “we know not the hour or the day”, Christ returned while I am still alive. Presumably Dad would get his resurrection body in his house, where the urn is, and I would imagine different scenarios (will he need clothes? There are still some in the closet.). The Scriptures tell us that the Lord will come and the dead in Christ will go to meet him first. They also indicate there will be some continuity between Creation as it is today, and the world to come when Christ comes back to us and brings everything back to Himself. (Jesus said, “behold, I am making all things new” not “I am making all new things”).
My mother passed away last year, and I was able to be with her when she drew her last breath. Now we kids are orphans. Mom and Dad are with the Lord, and their urns are side-by-side in the family home. Knowing they are eternally safe in Christ was an enormous comfort, but by 2022 had learned to lean into the longing for Christ’s return.
Today the number of ‘unchurched’, those with no religious faith (a/k/a “Nones”) has swelled. Our Saviour Jesus Christ has been used by sinful people for their own purposes since His Advent among us, so that continues to a besetting sin. It seems in the age of the internet, which has replaced gathering and learning about God to a DIY project, falsehoods about every member of the Trinity are amplified and spread in seconds. Those who mourn are misled by “teachings” that are found nowhere in Scripture. If it were true that “be nice” and you will go to Heaven, why did Christ die? And if Heaven is the extent of what you hope for, it leads us to treat our bodies like an old coat that is cast off, and not the temple of the Holy Spirit that will be rejoined with our souls.
More importantly, it casts life as a countdown, something to be endured until we get to something better. This misses the joy that we are not waiting to get to Heaven or the Last Day, we are living in God’s story now.
The late Reverend Tim Keller wrote a great book, “The Reason for God”, which may have come from his work establishing churches in Manhattan. I am very blessed, I was baptized, raised and confirmed in a (mainline liturgical Protestant) church body which placed great importance on the study of the Scriptures. Led by ordained, trained pastors and formed in the Christian faith, I am blessed to continue that formation as a disciple of Christ.
God gave His only Son for my redemption, and He loves me and hears me when I pray. And although those prayers are answered in accordance with His will, and I often don’t understand, and cry out, “why Lord?” it is always for my good.
May Almighty God, who reveals Himself to us, his Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, the giver of Life be with you all, and grant you the peace that passes all understanding.
That Stewardship Season
We got a gentle reminder that the fall stewardship campaign is underway from the pulpit, and our “commitment card” already arrived in the mail. This year there are some collateral materials ‘Stories to Tell & Gifts to Share’ and this week’s theme is “Graceful Living”, and asks “Do I acquire, regard, manage and spend my money in ways that reflect trust in God’s grace?”
The worksheet asks that each question is considered separately – Acquire doesn’t seem to cause any heartburn, I suppose I am not at the highest end of the humanitarian scale (doctor, pastor, teacher) but not at the lowest either (pimp, dictator, hired killer).
Regard can be a struggle – to constantly remind myself that everything I have is given by God’s grace, each breath, each sunrise, each day of work, each person I encounter, each task, each reward.
Likewise Manage can be a challenge, be responsible with money so that we do not burden others, to provide for ourselves and the church, our neighbors and those in need. Things like staying within a budget, paying off debts, saving for retirement and avoiding unnecessary expenses are axiomatic.
Spend is where the rubber hits the road. For after the reasonably righteous acquisition, the mindful regard of and careful management of the money entrusted to us, it would seem natural that the last step, what to spend it on, would logically be in accord with trust in God’s grace ~ except it isn’t.
Material temptations require no explanation. But there are other, more complex and alluring occasions of sin, that on the surface appear like good and generous uses of available cash, but when the shiny skin is pierced the underlying motive is less than admirable. Money can be used to do for someone what they should do for themselves, crippling their independence and creating an imbalance in relationships. It can be used to purchase influence and control, at the expense of respect and integrity.
I am going to try to blog about these questions as much as possible during this stewardship season, and would welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Of course we will keep the discourse civil, but that doesn’t mean don’t express your thoughts and feelings.
Thanks!
It ain’t easy being clean, and green
Last week I was watching an episode of the sitcom “The Middle” (Patricia Heaton, formerly of “Everybody loves Raymond”, essentially reprises that role as Frankie, married mom of 3 kids in Indiana). In this episode, the family has gone on a weekend vacation and their neighbor, who has taken their mail into the house, calls to tell them their house was ransacked and robbed. They come home to the police in their living room, and it dawns on them that their normal, “Hoarders”-caliber clutter and disorder looks to more objective eyes like the house had been turned upside down by burglars. Frankie snaps into action, and they cannot rest until the house has been thoroughly de-cluttered (to comic effect, of course) while Frankie spouts Oprah-isms and yells “Be ruthless!” when her daughter gets verklempt at the idea of throwing away the box her first high chair came in.
I thought for a moment about the greater-than-normal chaos that has erupted in our home recently – our very old dog had surgery, and has required an exhausting level of care, which after work and the other demands of life left us with no energy to do things like laundry or load the dishwasher, and even taking out the trash was an afterthought. And then I thought, who am I kidding? Sick dog or no, I feel like I am on Crap Patrol every day, I don’t have that peaceful feeling that comes from knowing whether you have, say scotch tape (because you keep it in a specified place, so you can tell when it’s depleted) before it’s time to wrap a gift while you’re late for a party.
Taking advice from the organizing sages, I decided to start small to build momentum – just organize one drawer. This happened to be the one where I believe the scotch tape should be kept – the “junk drawer” in the kitchen. I went to the Container Store and purchased little mesh drawer organizers (credit to the issue of “O” magazine that showed this). I shudder to write this, because my desk at work is so clean and devoid of stuff it should be in a magazine – but it literally took me an afternoon to organize that junk drawer, and when I was done perhaps 1/3 of what was originally in it went back in. The rest was either evidently garbage, or recyclable things like dead batteries, but a lot was hardware of unknown origin (what on earth do we ever use all those sizes of cup hooks for?) and being frugal I just couldn’t throw it away. But I don’t have a place for it, either, so now there is a very clean drawer with a pile of sorted hardware on the counter next to it. Arrrghhh!!!!
But at least I have that drawer (and another one in the desk, I had purchased extra drawer organizers so I attacked my drawer of sewing supplies). And we do have that momentum, that de-cluttering mojo, going strong. Or at least, I do. My better half has not caught then zen calm of being able to find his clothes in the closet (because I hung them up in plain sight, finding space after purging the tattered khakis he never wears). He does not yet see that I also put us on a hanger standard – we now use “swivel” hangers in the closets (no need to buy any, we had plenty after I weeded them from the white plastic tube hangers) and how nice and California Closet-like it looks.
But he also doesn’t see the piles of tattered clothes in sacks (hey, who knew the Salvation Army will take ripped and stained clothes for textile recycling? Keeps them out of the landfill and they earn $$ to fund their programs). There are no pixies that whisk away the agreed-upon donations. So the decisions get made, which is the hard part, but the execution is still a bit slow, so the clutter….is still with us.
And I’m again embarrassed to confess, I have rescued a thing or two from the piles. Just a sundress that I made in 1990, which I plan to remake into a halter dress (when I am finished with the other projects…) and a suit, which may go back in the donations group again. It’s from 2004. It’s brown. My hair has turned silver in the last 7 years and brown is not my color anymore. Okay, okay. The suit goes! “Be ruthless!”
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
I have been thinking a lot about the mantra of the green revolution, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Reducing consumption of resources is crucial, because the second two steps only forestall the endgame. For example, a reusable water bottle instead of a plastic water bottle eliminates the embodied energy spent manufacturing the plastic water bottle and avoids creating a thing that although it might be reused a few times (I understand this is actually unsanitary), it is only 30% likely to be recycled in the US. Even if it is recycled, there is energy required to collect and transport said water bottle to the recycling facility and energy required to transform in into something else. No free lunch, no “get out of jail free” card with recycling.
Of course, we cannot avoid the consumption of everything, so we must try to reuse as the second step. I have been in the horns of this dilemma with things that are no longer suitable for their original purpose but can’t really be re-used unless aggressively transformed. Take my husband’s jeans. He has worn the knees out of about five pairs, and my first reaction was to try to cut them off and make jeans shorts (a/k/a “jorts”) but since we do not live in a warm climate and shorts are infrequently worn to begin with, and I am told jorts simply look wrong without a mullet hairstyle, which my husband cannot effect due to hair loss – well, jorts are out as a reuse solution. What to do?
I saw this pattern to make reusable grocery totes out of old jeans and thought, now there’s a win-win solution! So I took the five pairs of jeans and cut them into the appropriate pieces. Then I started sewing them together (using an old mechanical sewing machine, not my good Viking) and it was a lot of work. I started thinking, I haven’t even finished one bag, and this is not how I want to spend my time. So now I had piles of cut up jeans parts and not a shred of will to continue with this project. I neatly piled the project materials to the side to contemplate.
Then, I got hooked on this TV show called “Hoarders” where very troubled people (and sometimes their family members) are unable to part with stuff, much of it really trash, and live trapped amid dangerous, depressing, infested, unnecessary piles of crap. And I looked at that pile of denim scraps and thought, “This is how it starts”. My next thought was “denim is cotton – it will decompose, or compost”. Into the trash they went. I still felt guilty and unsettled about this.
Then I started reading “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin (on my NOOK! No paper to recycle!) and her first chapter is about how clearing clutter leads to much happiness. I decided to attack a plastic bag full of mismatched and/or holey socks that had been sitting in the closet waiting for someone, someday, to dump them out and make a decision. My husband and I got our coffee and with our pets looking on curiously, sorted the socks, gaining back over a dozen useful pairs that we probably would have purchased replacements for (Reduce! Reuse!). But, of course there were still the ‘orphans’ and the severely shredded socks that had to be disposed of. I told my husband, they are cotton, they are wool, they may have a bit of latex rubber in them, they will decompose! Out they went (in compostable paper bags).
Being green and clutter free is like dieting, just a series of moment by moment, day by day decisions, what to do and what not to do, that can sometimes be overwhelming. And sometimes it seems like the path of least resistance is, well, weak, or wrong. Not necessarily – even if we don’t get it right every time, at least if we do the right thing most of the time, that is progress.
S.A.B.L.E. (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy)
My fellow knitter (and Lutheran) Kris coined the phrase “SABLE Syndrome” to describe some in our circle who have (or must have, since we have not seen the inside of their homes) enough yarn to stock several LYSs. Kris is an extraordinarily productive knitter. She had all her 2010 Christmas gifts knit up and – am not making this up – was working on her 2011 gifts – this year. She buys yarn and turns it into beautiful things, frequently to give to someone else, and very quickly. Kris and I are of like mind on many things, planners by nature, not given to impulsive recklessness like these out-of-control gals who shall remain nameless. Kris has helpfully suggested to some that are burdened with Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy that there should be an executor of their fiber estate named, or at the very least a special visitation where the knitters can come and select something from the stash of the departed.
As a knitter, I aspire to be as organized and productive as Kris. I planned to spend 2009 working my way through Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitter’s Almanac (not in the order of the book exactly, but to complete 12 projects in a year). Then my Dad needed to undergo a stem cell transplant (which has successfully put his lymphoma in remission, thanks be to God) and suddenly my priorities shifted dramatically. Somewhere around that time I exhausted my regulatory resources, the part of my brain that used to say “I do not need any more yarn” when confronted with an impossibly soft lace weight cashmere (spun by women in a cooperative in Tajikestan, the purchase of which will help support their tiny struggling remote village – okay, not a good example, that skein had me at “Tajikestan”). Everywhere I travel, I bought yarn. I bought “TeDdy’s Wool” yarn in Arab East Jerusalem that truthfully is basically Plymouth Encore – 75% Acrylic, 25% Wool – something I never would have touched in the US – but I was moved by the Arab shopkeeper who just inherited the store from his deceased father and clearly didn’t know knitting needles from crochet hooks but had a family to support (interestingly, in London I saw the same stuff you can get in the States and evidently was not sufficiently moved to make a purchase at Loop in Islington).
Perhaps this the manifestation of the hormone imbalance I must surely be experiencing, although I have experienced none of the signal events of impending menopause. Instead of hot flashes or mood swings I fret when I go past our LYS and it looks too empty, so I go in and comb the store for something I don’t already own, rationalizing irrationally that if I don’t get such and such book or needles now I will surely come back later and find the opportunity is lost forever.
I was on Ravelry after a lengthy hiatus and started to organize the “stash” section of my page. Then I was so overwhelmed and embarrassed by the size of my stash I had to stop. There are most certainly bigger fiber collections, but it is just too much for me. I have gotten to the point of trying to figure out how many years of projects I have, versus how many years I have left. And how many of those years, realistically, will be spent knitting up my stash, or will they be filled and shaped by the unexpected and sometimes unwelcome intrusions of life?
Or maybe it’s that now that life seems shorter, and more precious, I am trying to extend it with these yarns purchases. After all, I can’t die yet – I have too many projects to start…and finish.
Purls Before Swine 