iPandora

…the more I know I don’t know.

And it seems the same goes for many others.

The beautiful thing about this paradoxical realization is that I can right now assume I know very little, and save myself the trouble of having to unlearn things I have learned or will learn which are incorrect in actual fact.

And the even more beautiful thing about this is that I can choose to live, not in fear of what this food or that action or this chemical will do to me, and by applying a modicum of sensibility in place of the deluge of information we tend to rely on for facts, live just as safely and so much more happily than many other out there who are enslaved by the fear-mongering crowds of researchers, scientists, do-gooders, busy-bodies, and assorted other self-superior people.

I know this: fear prevents no more than caution, fear protects no better than sense, fear lives shorter and fear dies still fearful.

Fear is not for me.

The government of New York City decided it had the right and the responsibility to control the nutritional content of prepared foods sold in that city.

Michelle Obama has chosen to tackle childhood obesity (laudable, though seemingly less lofty than Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs), and joining her are voice shrilling for diet soda on school campuses and low sodium and low sugar meals in school cafeterias.

While the economy is slowing coming back in some ways it isn’t creating any more jobs right now, and with steep tax increases looming, there is little chance of it coming back with any great strength.

People are told by more and more “experts” that they aren’t capable of understanding or grasping the complexities of financial systems or education systems, loan programs or even the job market.

And the great caped crusader stands by ready (and very willing) to do it all for you.

Just sit back and relax, we’ll digest all this horribly complex stuff and feed it to you in small, easily digestible bites. Don’t worry about a thing.

How far must one go before those doing the feeding stop trying to pretend they want your input and just feed you what they decide is best for you, or them?

The problem I see with America right now is that all to many people appear willing to let that happen. Too many have accepted that they aren’t smart enough. Too many have given up trying. Too many are failing and think that is just the way it will be.

There is a fatalism feeding into a general apathy which will quickly create a society not far removed from the mentally and physically sedentary lifestyle portrayed aboard the space ships in Wall-E. Except it won’t be clean and sparkling. It’ll be dank and dirty and filthy and decrepit because there won’t be money for the cleaning lady. She’ll be just a stupid and poor as the rest of us.

President Obama said in a speech stumping for his latest power grab, the financial regulation legislation, that his goal is that the government provide clear and concise information for people making financial decisions.

My response: It’s not your job, it’s not your responsibility, and frankly, it’s none of your business.

There are plenty of sources of information, and it isn’t that hard to determine the veracity of information. And the government will get jealous when they find nobody trusts them to provide information, and so they’ll enforce an effective monopoly on their providing of financial information in the same way they legislated a monopoly for the United States Postal Service.

I don’t think much of what President Obama has championed since his election will last. There is too much energy arrayed against it. However, it is a law of the universe that energy decays and all things tend towards disorder. People are no different, if given an opportunity to bear less responsibility while still appearing to receive the same benefit, many people will shirk their responsibility. And after innumerable such trade-offs, they are left with neither benefit nor responsibility. Babies being fed by and at the will of their masters.

Fear is another powerful force we have to contend with. Fear reinforces inability and drains strength. Fear breeds dependency as few other forces can. If we fear what the salt and sugar in our diets will do to us, we can be controlled by those who claim to have the nutritional answer. If we fear the complexity of a financial situation, we are vulnerable to those who would counsel without conscience.

It seems to me that Christians, of all people, are least likely to be controlled by a grasping government. Due to God’s mantra  “Fear not!” and the recognition that the only thing we have to fear is that which can destroy souls, there is really very little a Christian ought to fear. And a fearless person is one is not prone to leveraging, or fear-mongering, or bullying, or any other tactic employed by unscrupulous power-seekers to enslave others and empower themselves.

Perhaps this is why historic bullies have sought to separate Christians from their fundamental beliefs, to destroy them bodily, or to expunge them from their turf. Fearlessness is strength.

The Swine Flu Virus

The internet is a great enemy of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), and there have been many things this year about which there is great FUD.

FUD is the friend of people who would abuse their power, because there is nothing quite like a good catastrophe to rationalize sweeping change. People who live in FUD are enablers and empower the abuses of those who lead by them.

One of the great fears this year is Swine Flu. It was the end of civilization, the plague that would wreak havoc on our society and it’s systems.

There was breathless analysis of how our society would plug the gaping holes left by the multitudes of sick and dead from this beastly flu.

And now we’re quite sure it’s not really all that bad.

When the fall/winter wave of H1N1 swine flu is over, it will have been no more severe than an average flu season, predict Harvard researcher Marc Lipsitch, DPhil, and colleagues from the U.K. Medical Research Council and the CDC. (from WebMD)

Why were we afraid?

Sure, H1N1, the “swine flu”, tends to affect people traditionally considered low risk for such illnesses. But it’s fatality rate wasn’t anything worrisome once it came down to it.

We were afraid because we didn’t have all the information, and the information we did have told us we ought to be afraid. The media and faux-news outlets so many of us go to for information had bought into the hysteria and spread it as only they can.

WebMD goes on:

Even so, the new numbers are cause for relief if not for celebration. Before the 2009 H1N1 swine flu came along, planners were preparing for a pandemic with a case/fatality ratio of 0.1% — that is, for one death in every 1,000 symptomatic infections.

The Lipsitch team now calculates that the H1N1 swine flu has a case/fatality ratio no higher than 0.048% — and maybe seven to nine times lower, depending on the methods used for calculation.

They are careful to note, though, that should any number of various circumstances occur, the fatality rate will shoot skyward and civilization will be, once again, toast.

The Lipsitch team has reason to want as much FUD surrounding this subject as possible. If the situation is dire and they can convince those who control the purse strings their research is integral to the salvation of humanity, they get more money.

Once the numbers could no longer be inflated, they had to retain their credibility and so gave this nice update. But see how throughout the story they always match the good news with a “but” to keep us ever aware of the necessity for remaining ready for panic.

I’m glad that, even if the swine flu begins to fulfill all the awful claims made of it, I still don’t have to fear.

Because while the internet is a great enemy of FUD, God’s faithfulness is the greatest enemy of FUD. Trust in God does not defeat FUD by simply informing us of the truth of the matter. If that were the case then in times of truly realized terror, Christians would have just as much reason to be terrified as anyone else.

Trust in God defeats FUD because we who trust in Him know there is only so much that can be taken away from us. This world and all it contains can only harm our bodies, these mortal coils. And if the worst were to occur and we were to lose our lives, we would be alive, truly, in heaven with God.

If you believe this, there is truly nothing that can shake us or cause us to fear.

The Internet circa 2003

Latest in our series on the beneficent free market is this wee screed on the internet.

The internet is a good thing. A powerful thing, I think everybody can agree with that. But I would argue it is a good thing too.

I don’t gloss over the terrible things people can find on the internet, the addictions it foments and feeds, the filth it spreads or the lies and slander that so easily pass for worthwhile information on it’s myriad nooks and crannies.

As with anything truly powerful, those who use it best seem to be those who would misuse it and abuse other with it.

But for all the garbage you can so easily stumble upon, there is great good. The potential and realized good both far outweigh the potential and realized evil in the same way the slightest candle will chase and overpower the shadows of the darkest room.

The internet is good because the internet allows information.

This would seem like a tenuous argument at best, but let’s not leave the argument there.

The internet is good because the internet allows information of all types, from all sources, to all consumers.

As Lady Justice holds her scales blindly and impartially, the internet is oblivious to any contextualizing of either the informer or the informed. The information itself can be contextualized, and due to the sheer mass of information on the internet, any single bit can be matched with any other bits to provide context and deeper insight into any piece of information.

But the internet itself does not care. It’s greatest strength is also it’s greatest weakness. The internet does not care what or who or how or why or anything else regarding the information that is posted and shared and disseminated through it’s labyrinthine pipes.

Fear is always the result of misinformation or too little information. From the macro fears of life “does God care for my future?” to the micro fears, “spiders!!!!!”, information is the best and most effective form of fear slaying. Reading the bible (maybe even on the internet) we can read God’s promises regarding our lives, and then looking back through our own lives and seeing the providential Hand working through the good times and the bad, that fear can be slayed by information. Using other information we can determine whether or not a given spider is dangerous to humans.

Thus the greatest enemy of fear is information, real and true information.

Now the obvious argument is that lies and disinformation are so very common on the internet, often masquerading as truth very effectively.

However, the internet also addresses that issue by nature, once again, of it’s open information structure.

Prior to instant background checks and credit reports and the globalized economies, trust was a necessary part of a business relationship. Today we still have trust-based systems for those times when a resume just isn’t enough.

References, people who know something and are in positions of trust and recognition, are often called upon to verify the abilities and character of a person. When one is unsure of whether or not someone else can or should be trusted they confer with a third party who has legitimate reason to be trusted and thereby determine the trustworthiness of the person.

With the internet, in it’s connected and interconnected state, we can easily find legitimately trustworthy people and then infer, from those they trust, other trustworthy sources. It is all about the free exchange of ideas and information.

Further, the antagonism that naturally results in such a free-for-all atmosphere further bolsters legitimate reputations as negative information can only with the greatest of difficulty be quashed or controlled, and more often than not, will free itself regardless the efforts of those seeking to control it. Those legitimately trustworthy will weather and withstand the onslaught and thereby gain further credibility.

The internet is the death of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) in that it enabled anybody to speak the truth, share the truth, and find the truth,and be sure it is the truth easily, and with high levels of certainty. It is the greatest leveler of the masses.

The internet could not exist were it not for the freest society in the world pushing and encouraging and growing it beyond the wildest dreams of those researchers at DARPA so many years ago.

Hey, it even allows me, a 20-something nobody to publish my pointless and babbling rants in a public forum with equal opportunity for success as authors of the first degree and highest reputation.

Max Lucado's Fearless

I watched the Jet Li movie Fearless twice in the theatre, and again recently with my wife. The film follows the true story of a martial arts master Huo Yan Jia, who through many twists and turns, ends up fighting for the respect of the world. At a time when China was considered a backwards nation inhabited by backwards people in need of managing and exploitation by foreign powers in the early 20th century, Huo Yan Jia stood up to the foreigners, not to defeat them, but to show them the citizens of China were real people deserving of respect.

To take on the might of foreign opinion peacefully required a singularly fearless individual, and the movie shows how Huo Yan Jia became the man for this task.

There is no appreciation of God in the movie, as it follows the spirit of Jet Li’s Buddhism and mysticism. So we know that Huo Yan Jia, in the film, is really only calling on his own strength and ability to stand strong.

If this is what one man alone can do, what about someone who rests on the one true God?

Truth be told, I’m not interested right now in facing down the entirety of world opinion against America. I’m more interested in getting through today.

I’ve been unemployed for 7 weeks now. We’ve not hurt for provision. We are able to pay our bills on time so far. But I’m a man who needs to provide for his family, and I have looked into the murky future and seen little to calm me.

Max Lucado has addressed the fears we all face, or perhaps all the fears we face, in his newest book Fearless. From the fear of not mattering to the fear of death. Fear of the unknown and fear of God getting out of our box. Max takes Christ’s frequent “fear not” and applies it to our fears. Christ’s terror while in the Garden, the disciples fear on the sea of Galilee, the fear of the disciples after Jesus was crucified.

Fear hampers and halters us, it ties knots around our knees and blindfolds over our eyes. Christ knew that effective Christians could not be fearful Christians, and so he frequently, repeatedly and seriously addressed fears of all kinds.

I’ve not been Max Lucado’s biggest fan. He writes at a low level in order to accessible to the vast majority of readers and that concession seems to me to water down his message.

However, in Fearless, there is sufficient meat and content of significance and I found myself digging deeper, considering the bible verses he was using, the quotes he was applying, the anecdotes he was relaying. The book seems small for all it contains.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, whether they fear or not. There are dragons in our world and there will always be one bigger than the last to face and surmount. Having the courage to see clearly and address the dragon with the strength of the Lord is imperative to victory in this life.

“(U)nless you’re a character on “Heroes,” genes don’t mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007. And genes certainly don’t cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does.”

Joel Stein in the LA Times points out the psychosomatic aspects of the significant majority of food allergies.

I don’t have an answer to this: How did the fearless and free generations who so enjoyed their hyper-sexual and hypo-responsible ’60′s and ’70′s fall into so much fear and fearmongering?

Brain cells fried by drugs perhaps?

Global warming? Bring it on. Warming trends have more often than not accompanied times of incredible growth and wealth and social development and health and general prosperity. Besides, the science is not ‘in’ in the way many claim.

Nuclear energy? Your children will not grow two heads or three arms. Trust me.

Lead poisoning? From clothes? You’ve got to be kidding me!

When did we get so far into this culture of fear that we’re requiring lead testing of second-hand clothes? I wore hand-me-downs and second-hand clothes for most of my youth… wait, maybe that’s part of my problem.

The people who are affected by such broad-reaching policies are those who most need access to inexpensive resources. Not those who are up to their necks in consumer debt and buying $50 shirts for their kids sporting the latest tawdry ‘popular’ entertainers name or likeness, but those who are making ends meet by shopping at consignment shops and second-hand stores. Instead, many such stores are being forced out of business after February 10th.

Fear and extremism go hand in hand. Extremist ideas are born from fear and breed fear.

I choose not to live in fear and instead act with reasonable consideration for real threat and no consideration for imagined ones.

One of my greatest fears is leadership.

I’ve felt the call to lead in various roles many times in my short life, but I tend to shrink from that responsibility.

My fear is of my struggles. I fear that the things I struggle with in my life combined with a position of leadership will bring God shame or damage His name.

So here again I stand at a cross-roads. I am being encouraged to take a position I’ve seen proven over and again is something God has brought me to. But once again I fear.

I was talking to someone over the weekend about Ephesians 5:25-31, Paul’s instructions to married men, and he commented that he finds sermons on the preceding verses, Paul’s exhortations to married women, very common. Common to the neglect of the exhorting of married men. I’ve heard sermons on each, myself, and cannot judge either way as to which I’ve heard more of. But regardless of the issue, real or perceived, married men seem to me to not be learning much of this vital information prior to tying the knot.

In the blogosphere I found an older article detailing a practical but brief perspective on the Ephesians verses for men. And an even more explicit and holistic view of the requirements of the husband in marriage (note, this article is graphic, not pictorial, but graphic) as spelled out throughout the Bible.

Marriage is a beautiful thing, so I’ve been told and have observed. My parents have been married 28/29 years, or thereabouts. I’ve observed them learn to deal with things together as they’ve raised my siblings and myself (we did not make it easy). But together they have joy and I think they can say, looking back, that the love they shared on their wedding day was the least love they’ve shared since. Marriage is a joining, a merging of two different people into a single living unit. The joining and merging brings a broadened perspective, an enhanced effectiveness. In business classes we learned that a well-balanced relationship allows for a result greater than the sum of the individual parts. This rings true for a strong marriage. Individually we may attempt and succeed at great things, but together, standing on each others shoulders, in each others care and support, and in Christs love, there is little indeed that cannot be accomplished. And children. Not only are the effect tangible in this life while the two live, but their heritage continues in their children, surpassing even the memory of their own specific achievements.

Marriage is also a difficult thing. In the “Great Unified Theory of Everything” (GUTE) marriage falls under the category Power Tools. A powerful tool can be easy and difficult at the same time, both using and mastering. A power tool can do great good and great evil, usually not at the same time. I have seen my parents argue, mostly when I was younger, and I recall the fear and insecurity those arguments gave me. But with time I can see how my mom and dad worked to deepen conversation and communication between each other, setting aside time each day to spend together. Usually right when dad got home from work, if something else wasn’t going on right then, he and mom would go into a room alone and talk. That took dedication, creating a habit in what could be a very hectic time of the day. As dad made more money he had the time and means to get involved in several hobbies, one of which is Civil War Reenacting. He’s always enjoyed camping, but my mom was never much for camping. In the past camping usually ended up being a “just us boys” time, which was good. But with reenacting there were enough amenities around that mom could go and enjoy herself too. But he also sets aside weekends several times each year that he and mom will leave for a quick weekend. Sometimes they go to the coast, sometimes they go to the mountains. Dad spends lots of time looking up Bed & Breakfasts that are well recommended and off the beaten path and he and mom will spend a weekend away, another honeymoon. Their love is palpable.  Marriage is hard work, especially when children and life seem to be trying their utmost to pull you apart individually and as a couple, and making habits of togetherness and making the special effort to get away and be just together is of supreme importance.

Marriage is a wonderful thing, so I’ve heard. Like all wonderful things it takes a lot of work, hard work. The more work that is put in, the greater the potential. Realizing the potential is up to each of us individually, but for the couple the rewards are greatest together.

She was smart, beautiful and funny, and most of all, she loved God.

February 11, 2007: Sunday morning I walked into Sunday School with the other Young Adults at Brainard Avenue Baptist Church. It was my second week back after being gone just over two years in California.

I had met the church and felt at home and accepted and appreciated back in 2003, and with that knew that I was to relocate at least for a while to Chicago after spending a few more years at home. After spending just over 2 years back in California, I returned to Chicago at the end of January 2007 and thanks to the generosity of friends church family in the area I was putting down roots.

Little did I know where those roots would grow and how my life was to change. Soon.

Back to that Sunday, February 11th. In my visits back to Chicago while living in California, I’d met some new members of the Sunday School class, students at Moody Bible Institute who were able to drive out to the suburbs for Sunday services at Brainard. It was good to see these people again in addition to the regulars and long-timers.

The Moody students had brought friends this Sunday. One young lady, in her first semester at Moody, had been searching for a church she could feel at home at while attending school, had taken advantage of her friend’s extra car seats, and was visiting the church for the first time.

The quiet, beautiful girl did not return for a few weeks.

When she did visit Brainard again, I made a point of talking with her for a few minutes. Making her feel welcome, I told myself.

It began as a friendship, nothing special. But I quickly moved beyond an average interest in her.

This was a Godly woman, beautiful, caring, very loving. All that attracted me very intensely. I had to get to know her better.

And so I did. Grace visited family in Washington for spring break. I missed her those weeks she did not come to Brainard.

I had offered to drive students to church from Moody when they needed extra seats, and one beautiful spring day they took me up on the offer. Three students needed a ride and so I went out early Sunday morning to pick them up. Due to the beautiful weather, the two others decided they were going to ride a motorcycle out to church that day, leaving Grace to ride with me by herself. She was not exactly comfortable with this situation at the outset, being alone in a car with some guy she hardly knew. But it was that or miss church, and I’d already driven out, so to not make a scene, she got in the car.

We began talking and found we had similar standards and backgrounds, and we both liked country music.

That afternoon several of us spent the afternoon at my apartment eating lunch, playing games, listening to music, relaxing. Grace and I continued to talk and get to know each other. I drove her back to school too, and said goodbye.

Over that spring the associate pastor and his wife invited several college students over for extended times of fun and fellowship, watching movies and entertaining their young boys. Grace was able to take some time off studying to attend one of these, so I volunteered to pick her up from school and bring her out to the suburbs so she could spend time with us.

The other Moody students had come out earlier in the day and so again I was able to spend time just with Grace, getting to know her better.

We also spent a Saturday helping some other students move to an apartment off campus. While there were others around, I sought out Grace and helped her and asked her to help me in specific tasks. I was twitterpated. And I believe she knew I was possibly interested in more than friendship.

Our friendship continued to grow and as the semester drew to a close I was trying to decide if I should ask her if we could move into a potentially romantic relationship or talk to her dad first. Various things led me to decide to speak with her dad first, but as I drove her and a mutual friend to the airport that morning in early May I bit my tongue.

Our parting was awkward as our relationship was possibly changing and yet neither of us had mentioned it to each other. We parted with an awkward side hug and I drove to work while she winged her way home to Dallas.

Earlier in the semester she had given me her cell phone number but had informed me her phone was broken and so I had not called her. As she left for the summer, she left a few boxes of things which would not fit in the summer storage at Moody which I was to take to the associate pastor’s house for storage. The boxes had her home address.

I spent the weekend visiting friends in Louisville, Kentucky and trying to work up the courage to call her or her dad. I still wasn’t very sure of her interest in me and I feared rejection. So I decided to try and talk with her one more time, just to gauge her possible interest.

Leaving Louisville late Sunday afternoon for the long drive back to Chicago, I called her. I’d used the address on her boxes to look up her home phone number in the phone book online. And now the phone was ringing.

Her mother answered.

“Can I speak with Grace, please? This is Matthew, a friend from Chicago.”

The phone call and the trip went quickly, all 4 hours of both. And I had my answer. We still had not talked specifically of our relationship, but I knew that if it was that easy for both of us to spend 4 hours talking and with similarities between us in standards and beliefs, I knew I wanted to pursue this lady.

The next day I called her dad. I spoke to him on Tuesday and asked if I could begin courting his daughter.

Over the next few weeks he asked me questions regarding my views and opinions on various matters and eventually told me he and his wife would allow me to court Grace.

I was planning a trip down to Missouri by then to see her for a weekend. She was working at Child Evangelism Fellowship’s headquarters outside St. Louis.

June 15th, 2007: The Friday before I drove down to see her, when we were having what by then was a regular evening phone call, I told her I’d been talking to her parents about courting her (she knew that already) and I asked her if she was willing to court me.

She said yes.

Over the summer she traveled to New York to work with children in the projects and other parts of the city, returning to Missouri and then Dallas in August, where I spent a week meeting her family and friends and having fun together.

We flew back to Chicago together: her to begin classes and me to get back to work.

Through the semester and now these months together I grew to appreciate more and more her strength, her tenacious love, her sense of direction and purpose, and her Godliness. Not to mention her beauty and her spirit, her consistency and organization. I knew rather quickly that she was definitely the one I wanted to marry.

Apparently she knew too.

After a winter trip to California meeting my family and friends and receiving further counsel from my parents, I began seriously considering marriage to this wonderful woman God had brought into my life.

After an intense period of counsel, thought, and prayer we were still unsure when the best time would be for our wedding to occur and our marriage to commence: Whether to marry this year or after she graduates in 2010.

Grace and I decided to have a period of time where we were to not contact each other but to spend that time seeking the Lord’s will and answers in our lives.

Ending Valentine’s Day, 2008, these 7 days were painful but rich, and we both, individually, felt God leading us to marry this year.

In the church parking lot, on February 25, 2008, 1 year and 2 weeks after we’d first met in the Sunday School classroom not too far away, I got down on one knee and asked Grace if she would marry me, be my wife and the mother of our children.

She said yes!

American Texan and I will be married August 2nd, 2008, in Dallas TX.

See our website at MattLovesGrace.com

Alex Tokarev, writing in World on the Web comments on the current status of post-slavery racial sensitivity in America:

I’m from Bulgaria and still learning more about English language usage. Impressed by one of the presidential hopefuls I told my cousin,”This boy, Obama, is the best orator of them all.” She looked at me with fear and explained that it was dangerous to call a black man “boy,” since slave owners had used that term for their male slaves in the nineteenth century. It did not matter that I was not a slave-owner or that Obama had never been a slave.

Maybe you have to be an outsider to be surprised at such sensitivity, but I should point out that the world knows about slavery and segregation in America. It will benefit America to learn the history of the world. Other nations have had much worse for many more centuries and they do not brood on the past as much.