The July 6 Wall St. Journal Sunday had a column titled Never Lend Money to a Friend: Repeat: Just Don’t Do It (no longer online but it’s still cached on Google). A section of the article details the problems with lending money to family, including siblings.
And in yesterday’s NY Times: Leaning on Their Parents, Again. It includes a profile of a guy who “… is among a growing number of mature professionals who receive financial assistance from parents, in-laws or both.”
My son Tyson pointed me to this laugher: Pat Robertson: Pray for justices to retire. Here’s the full letter on his web site.
It reminds me of my Catholic seminary days long ago when we half-jokingly prayed for a particular pope to be “called to an early reward.”
But as we laughed about this over a beer on Thursday evening, I told him I didn’t think it was really all that different than when mainstream religious leaders pray for peace, like most did before the Iraq war. It’s clearly socially acceptable. What exactly is it you’re asking God to do when you say prayers for peace? Flip a few switches so that the leaders involved don’t take military action? Why isn’t that just as goofy as asking God to, as The Daily Show lampooned on Thursday night, speed up Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s colorectal cancer?
And then this sad story: Sailor killed in helicopter crash in Italy
“The proud, anxious father — news and sports producer for the Kansas City Star’s Web site — had shared his thoughts, emotions, memories and fears for his son in columns and journals posted on the site. Sam’s mother… wrote journals, too, including one posted on March 8, shortly after the Navy helicopter crewman arrived in the Persian Gulf. “I dream about my son, Sam,” his mother wrote. “He’s a toddler with a wiggle in his walk, pretty blond curls and a smile that lights up his whole face, dimples and all. He’s full of curiosity, laughter, stubbornness and innocence. “Then I wake up with a sick feeling in my heart and a prayer on my lips: Please, God, keep him safe. Keep all of them safe.”
And: A father prays for Navy son’s safe return “In the meantime, won’t you join us — the families, loved ones and friends of U.S. service people — in praying for their safe return?”
Yes, as my wife pointed out to me, it’s a natural urge to pray this way, especially when it involves the safety of one’s kids. But it’s mistaken. And in the long run, no matter whether these prayers are “answered” or not, it undermines a spiritual perspective about how God operates.
The guy whose book, Letters to My Son, planted the seed that eventually sprouted Real Joe, now has a weblog.
Kent Nerburn appears to be a natural born blogger. I’m pleased to have finally gotten it through his thick skull that he needed a weblog, and that I was the guy to help him do it.
Check out his first few entries: an update on his book-in-progress; a reflection on being at the bedside of a friend just injured in car accident; his struggle with an email attack from a reader.
“… children who had to deal with divorcing parents and the subsequent move of a parent — with or without the child — to a location more than an hour away were more likely to feel they had a “hard and difficult” life and had adjusted less favorably personally and emotionally.”
Which is why it bugged me last year when Michael Jordan split with his wife and then spent most of his time going for glory in Washington DC with the Wizards, leaving his three kids back in Chicago with his wife.
Full study: Relocation of Children After Divorce and Children’s Best Interests: New Evidence and Legal Considerations
I wrote this in my journal last Saturday morning while sitting down at the local coffeehouse.
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I’m in a reflective mindset and now I get this. A guy stops by my table, tellling me to get my ass down to the racquetball club in 15 minutes because “all the big guns will be there.”
I could bail right now and join the gang at the club. I’m pleased to be invited. I’m a big-gun wannabe. But it would be entirely ego-driven since from the moment I woke up this morning, I’ve been trying to pay attention to… what? Something, I don’t know. It’s triggered by the feedback to my presentation at yesterday’s Inner Circle meeting on what my vision and plan is for Real Joe as a business. I’m just trying to be alert, to listen to whatever inspiration or ideas or wisdom might be on its way. I could be wrong, of course. There could be nothing new on its way. The message could simply be “stay the course… persist.” But after rereading a section of Coming to Life this week, I was reminded that I don’t have to “know.” I just have to ask, listen, and then do. Obey, even.
After leaving yesterday’s meeting, I stopped at a bookstore to see if they had a book recommended by a guy in my group — Jim Earley, an executive coach. They didn’t but while perusing the rack, I saw the book A Kick in the Seat of the Pants by Roger van Oechs, first published back in the 80s sometime. I flipped through the chapters and saw that the last one was on The Warrior attitude. Which is my sense of what I need more of these days. So I ordered it from my local library’s online service SELCO, which is my usual money-saving strategy these days– get it from the library first and the decide if it’s something I want to buy.
So now I’ll go for a short walk before I head to an arts festival in neighboring Cannon Falls with my wife, daughter, and her friend. I’d rather be riding my motorcycle today but I’ve got a lot of that coming up over the next month so this arts festival thing was my idea, much to my wife’s surprise. And all the big guns will still be at the club next week anyway.
Here’s a message to give to your sons: Masturbation Therapy for Prostate Cancer
“Frequent masturbation, especially during the young adult years, can lower a man’s chances of developing prostate cancer, a new study claims. It’s not clear why masturbation may help men avoid prostate tumors. One theory is that purging the gland regularly clears it of cancer-causing substances. Another suggests it allows cells in the organ to become more cancer-resistant. But the study, by Australian researchers, says that the more and the earlier, the better. Several doctors who were asked to comment on the study declined to do so, saying they hadn’t read it yet.”
And their hands were full.
Whenever I’m returning from the Twin Cities via I-35, I try to take a short SOS (Shot of Solitude) break at Ritter Farm Park in Lakeville. Usually I try to pay attention to the trees, grasses, wildflowers, and swamp wildlife. But today it was the sky — small, growing thunderstorms in all directions — quintessimal midwest in mid-July. I love this state.
Salon readers blast Anne Lamott’s decision to make her son go to church. “When I was 14 years old, I knew what relationship I was or wasn’t going to have with God. I was taking driver’s training and contemplating the meaning of life, which I did not find in the Episcopalian church I had attended with my parents since infancy. He’s already the man he will be. Let him decide. Treat him like an adult.”
And some object to her writing about him: “If Anne Lamott doesn’t want her teenage son’s inner monster she so cutely names “Phil” to emerge fully as a true monster, she should stop using her son as fodder for her writing. “
And a day later: Readers rush to the defense of Anne Lamott. “When I was a teenager I would have slept until noon every Sunday if my parents hadn’t made me get up, put on a skirt, and go to church with them. But they did… and even though I whined and complained every Sunday morning, once I was at church I found a haven of peace and kindness and spirituality. Years later (and after many years of independent involvement in the church), I’m still thankful they did. Left entirely to their own devices, wouldn’t most teenagers blow off church, or school, or sports practice?”
In the July/Aug issue of Utne: Are You a Pantheist? An ancient spiritual impulse wins new followers
“If you see divinity in a moonlit sky or a field full of daylilies; if a walk outdoors fills you with reverence more than stepping into a grand cathedral, synagogue, or mosque, chances are good that you are a pantheist…. Believing that the universe itself is divine, pantheists have no use for a personal, anthropomorphic God, much less supernatural realms like heaven and hell.”
Larry King: Do you believe in God?
Stephen Hawking: Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe.
In Salon (premium): Because I’m the mother: My son hates church, but I make him go anyway by Anne Lamott.
“Of course he doesn’t want to come to regular worship — it’s so naked, built on the rubble of need and ruin, and our joy is so deeply uncool — but by the same token, he doesn’t want to floss, or do homework, or weed. He does not want to have any hard work, ever, but I can’t give him that without injuring him. It’s good to do uncomfortable things. It’s weight training for life.”
We made our kids do uncomfortable stuff, too, but church wasn’t one of them, basically because neither my wife or I liked going. If we’d look for and found one that suited us, we probably would have made them go. Looking back, there’s a part of me that wishes we’d looked a little harder. I think as long as it wasn’t hypocrisy, we all could have benefitted from a little more spiritual discipline, exposure to some religious traditions, and the community/neighbor outreach activities.
Since Lamott is a solid, sane Christian — a Jesus freak, in her words — and can easily the enumerate the benefits to her attendance and involvement with her church, she has the right idea when it comes to asserting her parental authority and making her son go:
“So why do I make him go? Because I want him to. These are bewildering, drastic times we live in, and a little spiritual guidance never killed anyone. And I think it’s a fair compromise, that it’s only every other week. Also, I make him go because I can — I wrote a piece about this years ago, about why I made him go to church, and this was the main reason. And I still can. He has no job, no car, no income. He’s basically a freeloader. He needs to stay in my good graces.”