Conflict Management

I just got back from a long weekend in New York City. It was a great trip, and we saw lots of wonderful things. I am amazed every time I go there, not only with the size and scope and scale of it all, but also with the history, the complexity and the romance. It is a wonderment.

It was sixty something degrees on Sunday afternoon, and we were riding the Miss Ellis Island ferry back from the Liberty and Ellis Island tours. The sun was going down and the skyline was glowing. I was so proud to be a part of the land of the free, the land of opportunity. And I felt so fortunate and grateful for having the chance to share the experience with my family and friends. The trip to New York was our family Christmas gift.

You know that feeling you get on Christmas night or the last day of vacation when you ask yourself if the occasion lived up to the hype? You get that let-down, guilty feeling because you know you've been blessed but you wish there was something more? Here I was, riding on the top deck of a ferry in perfect December weather, surrounded by friends and family, admiring the glow from Lady Liberty's torch and how it seemed to be reflected in the entire, magnificent skyline of Manhattan, yet I could not shake an angry, anxious feeling. I should have been feeling peace or pride or thankfulness, but instead, I was perturbed.

I think the root of my anxiety was that I could not resolve the conflicting messages I had received throughout the whole weekend.

The city was incredibly crowded. At times it was impossible to move on the sidewalk, and stores like Macy's and M&M World in Times Square must have been over the fire marshal's limit. And yet every news cast and every headline crawl on the overhead signs was predicting economic ruin and even blaming America for the global downturn.

"Save the planet" marketing was evident everywhere. The hotel urged re-using towels to conserve water, and signs in every subway car asked passengers to dispose of trash properly. The horses pulling the carriages in Central Park wore diapers, and Ricoh proudly displayed Times Square's only wind and solar powered billboard. But the streets and subways were covered with litter. The majority of taxis were poorly maintained gas guzzling sedans. Our ferry had to negotiate around an enormous trash barge on the way to Liberty Island. This media mecca has apparently adopted the 'do as I say, not as I do' plan for environmental sensitivity.

The cultural diversity, as always, was amazing. The languages, the street vendor food and the wide variety of religions represented let you know that this was truly a global city. Unfortunately, diversity does not always come with respect. The narthex in St. Patrick's cathedral was littered with Starbuck's cups and food wrappers, and inside the cathedral I saw Hindu visitors using the kneeling pads as foot rests while loudly making dinner plans and some Middle Eastern gentlemen(?) pointing and laughing at the Nativity Scene, why I don't know. On the ferry I heard a French(?) couple patiently explaining to a couple from Indiana why Bush was a war criminal and why Europe was excited that we had finally elected a president more palatable to them. Our Texas accents were remarked upon as well. I suppose, as long as you are not a midwestern Christian American, the cultural diversity is quite comforting.

The local news was typical. There were stories about innocent people being shot, about the perils of being homeless in the winter and about the economic challenges of earning a living in NYC. The shooting stories were often followed by police or politicians preaching gun control, as though that keeps criminals from getting guns. Tied to the homeless story was another one about a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee affordable housing to every U.S. citizen, promoted by Charles Rangel (D), NY. There was, however, no effort to tie the economic difficulties of living in NYC with the tax rate, corruption or expansive government programs.

The most subtle conflict was more of an impression than a direct observation. Here was marvelous Manhattan, with its incomprehensible density and wealth and infrastructure, and yet even if you didn't know about September 11th, you would probably be able to feel the hole in the skyline. At our hotel, they were opening the trunks of every vehicle and checking under them with mirrors. There were two security screenings before being allowed into the Statue of Liberty, and even with that you could only tour the base. One bicyclist, trying to maneuver through the crowds, yelled at the top of his lungs, "Down! Down! Down! Everybody Down!" and though I didn't see anyone hit the deck, everyone who heard him froze in their tracks.

What perturbs me most, what makes me anxious, is not the pollution or the politics or even the hints of insecurity. It is, instead, the startling, though mostly unmentioned, conflict between who we say we are and what we do. We say liberty, but ridicule the religious and censor alternative opinions. We say opportunity but regulate the playing field and remove the penalties for failure. I wonder, as with Christmases and vacations, if I'm simply expecting too much.

I could lower my expectations, but I don't want to limit Christmas to parties, feasts and gifts, and I don't want to confine my country by removing the struggle necessary for achievement. A 'Merry Christmas', with all its required spirituality, is much more satisfying than a generic 'Happy Holidays', just as liberty and opportunity are much more exhilarating than comfort.

Intellectual Cowardice

A friend of mine tells me he is agnostic, though I'm fairly certain that with his 'hip' friends he claims atheism. He suspects I would forcibly take him to church for the sake of his eternal soul, but he would be wrong. I'm Presbyterian. He doesn't discriminate between denominations; he thinks we are all trying to abscond with his soul and/or his money.

He never passionately argues his beliefs, but he does like to trot out the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Church of Google and Westboro Baptist Church. And in justifying his non-belief he, of course, leans heavily on the Earth being more than 6,000 years old, that the story of the Flood was stolen from the Sumerians and that what Jesus wouldn't do is invade Iraq. But there is no passion in his arguments because it's not personal; a personal argument would require a thorough self inspection, which is difficult to do.

I've often thought that people who subscribe to this sort of "easy answer intellectualism" were just being lazy. They get news and opinion, in a highly digestible format, from Jon Stewart and David Letterman, and stimulating policy discussion from Bill Maher and Oprah Winfrey. Environmentalists get all the science they'll ever need from Ed Begley, Jr. and Al Gore. Religion? The obvious experts would be Madonna or Tom Cruise, but for the more discriminating there is always Bill Moyers . If Jason Bourne can summarize Sarah Palin's entire faith into a question about dinosaurs, I mean, come on, how much analysis do you really need to do?

The laziness excuse, however, seems a bit simplistic. I see people investing enormous amounts of energy every day into evaluating MP3 players or researching the nutritional content of dry dog food. The mental gymnastics required to economically justify the purchase of a hybrid car, or to convince yourself that George W. Bush is a war criminal, may be based on figments, but they are probably not from mental fatigue. Apathetic people don't put forth the intellectual effort to delude themselves, like we saw in the hopey-change of this year's election, but frightened people do.

Frightened people, like my agnostic/atheist friend, don't do a lot of in-depth self analysis. They are looking for someone to save them, like the scientist or the government, because saving yourself is hard and you might have to make choices you don't like. Hopefully their savior has reasonable answers that won't require too much individual effort. In fact, it's best if the answers only require effort from others, like taxing those bad rich people, or legislatively hamstringing those evil, polluting corporations. Advocates of change are almost always wanting someone else to change, because they, obviously, are already enlightened.

My argument here is that easy solutions are cowardly, because they do not require introspection or sacrifice. You can argue against the existence of the soul with rational tools like the scientific method, but are you willing to make those same arguments when you or a loved one is dying? You can argue that mortgaging the economic future is acceptable because the economy is in crisis now, but how shallow will those arguments sound when your children cannot reach their potential?

If you believe in God, don't take some pastor's word for it, own your faith. If you believe in America, don't adopt some celebrity concept of political correctness, be committed to what is fundamental and important to being an American*. If it's not personal, in either faith or politics, it's not true. The hard part is finding the truth within. Don't be an intellectual coward. Don't be frightened, be desperate. Figure it out for yourself.

* Adlai Stevenson said to the American Legion in 1952 ... "Men who have offered their lives for their country know that patriotism is not fear of something; it is the love of something."

Loving Candy

Yes, that's me on iowahawk's blog.

In my defense, it was 1979 (as evidenced by the Playboy cover) and the legal drinking age was 18. I debated about posting a link to it, but then I said, "I can't dance and it's too wet to plow."*

Of course, the fact that my mother doesn't own a computer factored into my decision, too.

* 1979 Texas panhandle lingo that roughly translates to today's "WTH"

Old Men

One of my nephews has always had an outgoing, easy-to-talk-to way about him. When he was six or so he chased down the garbage truck and said something to the effect of "Hey fellas! I was supposed to take out the trash this morning but I forgot. You've already gone past our house but I was wondering if you couldn't run back by and pick it up before my Mom finds out I forgot." And danged if they didn't do it for him.

My brother-in-law and I were discussing this nephew's gift the other day after nephew had called and told us that a friend of a friend of his knew of a rifle for sale that we might be interested in. He was out in East Texas, deer and hog hunting. He was planning to stop in and visit with an older couple that lived out near Mineola. He knew them because they were friends with my in-laws, his grandparents. How many twenty-three year old men do that? Just stop in and visit or call up an elderly couple to check on them?

I think he's on to something. As I think back there have been an awful lot of old men that have made an impression on me and provided great examples on how to act like an upright, honest man. Not that all the lessons took, but I do remember them. I know I've written a lot about my Dad here, we all learn a lot from our fathers, but I'm talking about just regular old men, guys my nephew might pick up the phone to check on.

When I was in high school I worked at Pampa Hardware Company on Cuyler Street in downtown Pampa. The Lively family owned it. Travis Lively Sr. had started the business with a man named Thompson a long time ago, like maybe the 1920's, and when I worked there, in the late 1970's, his son, Travis Jr., was running it. Travis Sr. was pretty old by then, and pretty scary ... he looked like the classic mean old man who lived down the street ... until you got to know him.

Travis Sr. taught me a lot of things, like the importance of saving something out of every paycheck. Pampa Hardware was my first "real" job with a paycheck. I was also impressed at how dedicated he was to his church, the First Methodist Church in Pampa. He brought his Bible to work and studied it regularly. He was always extremely considerate of his wife and all the other ladies around the store. His attention to detail was pretty amazing, as well as his consistently high standards. He would pause before answering a question, as if to let you know that he put some effort into it. He was an old man, and didn't move very quickly but he always carried himself like a gentlemen.

Of course there are plenty of old men in the family that were great examples. Shorty Barnett, my wife's grandfather, was an old guy with lots of life and a hard working, simple ethic about him that I always admired. My father-in-law, Darvis, has always been a dependable and happy and caring man. My uncle Ivan, who was always kind-hearted to a bunch of heathen kids and loved to joke and horse around with us, showed me it was okay to act like a kid even when you're old. I remember Mom referring to Dad as "the Old Man" a lot, but I never took it to be derogatory.

When I stop to think about it, I could probably fill up this blog with the bits and pieces I've learned from men who some would consider past their prime. There was Fryson, one of our neighbors growing up, who we could always count on for a piece of 2 x 4 for a project or a 25 cent chore if we wanted to get a soda. There was Othel, who was my supervisor when I worked in the oil patch during college summers, who demonstrated that slow and steady can actually win a race. There was the man who was at the nursing home, visiting his wife, every time I was there to visit my Dad. He was there every time because he was there every day. There was Mr. Howard, who worked in a fast food kitchen with me many Friday and Saturday nights during my college years. He was hard-headed and gruff and energetic and dependable and consistent. There was the farmer who pulled my truck out of a ditch with his tractor while patiently explaining the dangers of soft shoulders, both kinds. There was the old cowboy who told me I shouldn't complain about the smell of manure because "for some of us, it smells like grocery money."

Anyway, I think the nephew is on to something. I think we could all get some benefit from visiting with an old man from time to time. I hope, if you're a young man you've got plenty of old men around to learn from. I hope, if you're a middle aged man that you've got a solid grasp of the legacy you need to build and the standards you need to set. And I hope, if you're an old man, that you know we appreciate you.

Hey, wait a minute! Nephew called me for no good reason, just to check up. Surely he doesn't think I'm an old man already!

God and Democrats

I'm currently reading two books. I do that sometimes. And sometimes I'm amazed at how a sentence or paragraph in one book will complement or clarify a point in the other one, especially if they are two distinctly different topics. I'm currently reading The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes and The Language of God by Francis Collins. Shlaes is writing about the history of the Great Depression, and Collins is a world renown scientist explaining his belief in God. God and Democrats ... I think it's fair to describe those topics as distinctly different.

Sometimes when I'm reading, I'll pause and re-read a sentence or a paragraph either because I'm distracted or because I didn't understand it or because its just clunky. But sometimes I read it again because I need extra time to fully appreciate it and I try to connect the dots between what the author is saying and what experience has taught me. Here's a couple of snippets from each of the books mentioned above that I read more than once for that reason.

Collins, in discussing why God allows suffering in the world, writes:

For many thoughtful seekers, these rational explanations fall short of providing a justification for the pain of human existence. Why is our life more a vale of tears than a garden of delight? Much has been written about this apparent paradox, and the conclusion is not an easy one: if God is loving and wishes the best for us, then perhaps His plan is not the same as our plan. This is a hard concept, especially if we have been too regularly spoon-fed a version of God's benevolence that implies nothing more on His part than a desire for us to be perpetually happy.

I don't think there is anything especially unique there, it's a pretty standard response to the question. But when I read the following from Shlaes' book it tickled my "go back and re-read" response which helped me make a connection between the two.

Shlaes, in discussing a Roosevelt strategy session from November of 1937, writes:

At the end of November, Jackson accompanied the president on a fishing trip. Hopkins and Ickes - who at times feuded bitterly - were also aboard the Potomac, sharing a cabin. The four prepared political strategy: specifically, an assault on the wealthy. Roosevelt caught a large mackerel early on, but it was Jackson who had the biggest catch of the trip, a barracuda of more than twenty-five pounds. If any of them considered the incongruity of planning a class war on a yacht, they did not mention it.

Initially I think I connected the two passages because of the 'vale of tears' vs. 'garden of delight' phrase. The other book is about the Great Depression, which certainly qualifies as a tearful time, though FDR and friends were out enjoying the delightful garden that God provides. The details of who caught what provided by Shlaes is a nice touch since it shows they weren't all business, they had a varied agenda.

I can imagine the yacht scene with leisurely fishing and serious discussions over cocktails while safely distanced from and undistracted by the realities of the economy. This image is where I made another connection. These elite citizens, carefully planning strategy to reach their own lofty goals, and "His plan is not the same as our plan" have the similar root of arrogance.

In reading about the planned assault on the wealthy, I was trying to understand why they would consider that as a strategy, especially since FDR was in that class. I couldn't understand if it was guilt, political expediency or socialist ideology that made 'attack the rich' seem appropriate. Tearing down the wealthy to raise up the poor seemed like it evolved from the concept of 'a spoon-fed benevolent God' and I wondered, was FDR playing God? Was he trying to replace the commonly promoted benevolent God with government programs?

Then there is the suffering. In God's plan, everyone can expect adversity. In FDR's plan one group, the wealthy, will receive intentionally inflicted hardships. At first glance, FDR's plan seems more thoughtful or sensitive or morally correct ... make a few, who have plenty already, suffer for the benefit of the whole. But the idea of a targeted punishment doesn't fit with creating a world of 'perpetual happiness' and it takes us right back to the question of why God, or in this case the government, would actively promote the oppression of any group.

I don't believe that God uses suffering as punishment. I see it as a by-product of experience and self improvement; it's simply the price you pay for the benefits of living in this world. I'm not sure we can ever know FDR's true intentions for targeting the rich. You could make the case that his reasons were emotional, political, ideological or perhaps ( in some universe other than mine ) rational and practical, but I don't think you can make the case that his reasons were moral.

Some may argue that the reasons were moral, because taking from the rich was not a punishment, but necessary to improve society. Maybe Roosevelt believed that the love of money was the root of all evil and therefore the right thing to do would be to take the money away and inhibit the ability to create more. Maybe that would, eventually, change our social ideas about wealth and its accumulation.


The problem is that morals have no point unless people are free to act. If you are coerced into doing the right thing, power, not morality, is the influencing factor. It follows that if you want to enforce ( or is it inflict? ) your morality on others then you must be powerful. You need to create it, pursue it and collect it. I don't think FDR was trying to improve us by removing the temptations of wealth. I think he was simply in love with power because he needed it to remake the country to his personal specifications.

Perhaps I should summarize the connection I see for clarity's sake.

God allows free will. Democrats don't. They should quit playing God.