Blessings

Much to my honor and surprise, I discovered today that I have been "blessed" by the wise and eloquent Diane. As I understand it, the idea is explained here:

The idea… it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for one blog friend. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you recieve a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world!

So I gather that the idea is to "bless" three people in the blogosphere, and to tell them why I have chosen to bless them. But first let me say to Diane how honored I am to have received your "blessing," particularly since I very much admire your writing and wisdom.

Second, let me say as clearly as I can that limiting this to only three people is hard because there are so many blogs and people I admire for so many reasons. I am blessed to have had the chance to get to know all of you.

And since I can procrastinate no longer, I bless more cows for her friendship, wisdom, intelligence and generosity of spirit. Second, I bless Gannet Girl, for her honesty, willingness to challenge me, and courage (I hope that if ever I find myself called to another vocation, I will have some portion of the courage she is showing in pursuing hers). Finally, I bless Wyld, for reminding me that holiness and wisdom come in many forms, for the courage he shows in serving our country, and for his dedication to honesty and integrity.

Though I am limited to only three "blessings" as part of this game, I also wanted to send virtual shout-outs to Mags (who constantly amazes and inspires me with her wisdom, eloquence, and wit) and Katherine (who has been so generous in sharing her thoughts, reflections, and wisdom with me. Katherine, your willingness to pursue a better working situation when it might have been "safer" to stay at an old one impresses me a lot).

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my friends in the blogosphere! It has been a joy to share this year with all of you, to share stories, and to benefit from your wisdom. Prayers and best wishes for a Christmas full of light, joy, life, and hope.

of Advent and focus

Our focus can become our reality.

This little thought has been percolating around my head today. I've heard it many times in various forms throughout the years. In graduate school they taught us that people with depression, for instance, tend to focus on failures and signs of rejection -- ignoring or minimizing any positive evidence about themselves or their worlds. Similarly, those with anxiety often focus on signs of threat, etc.

But for reasons I cannot go into here, today I found myself thinking about affection and emotional intimacy. About how our choice of focus can cause us to hug without feeling hugged, to touch without feeling touched, to love without feeling loved in return. Our focus can cause us to go through the motions of life without opening our heart and letting life touch us back.

Which got me thinking about Advent. This time of preparation for this immense Gift we are to receive. I think it is easy to consider this in terms of setting our lives "on the right road," or correcting unhealthy patterns. And all of this may be true. But I think on a deeper level, Advent may be about opening our hearts, letting this upcoming Moment touch us, affect us, change us.

Loving God, yes, but also letting God love us, letting ourselves feel loved by God.

A Christmas story...sort of...

And so it came to pass in the year of our current era 2007, that there was great demand for this device known as “Wii” – demand so great as to dwarf the supply sent out by the renowned company Nintendo.

Many were the glories of this Wii, for though the graphics and sound were of small comparison to others, yet it did have sensors and pieces capable of mimicking actions of real sport. And so powerful was this idea as to fill those seduced by its advertisements with notions of fun at parties and improved golf swings.

And, lo, in defiance of the small odds of success, did the man go in search of the Wii. Yea, even to the point of uncovering the likely time of arrival of the UPS truck at local stores with dubious health care policies for their workers did he go, and stood in lines, and followed up with phone calls.

And the Lord God looked down upon this, and spoke thus: “you shall have no Wii.”

Hearing thus, the man did redouble his efforts, following up on hints and advertisements. Yea, even did he participate in things called “lotteries” and other promotions of dubious moral character to obtain this great Wii.

And God repeated: “you shall have no Wii.”

Hearing this again, the man did mutter curses under his breath and considered the many virtues of the Wii, yea even so that the Wii seemed to become golden and shaped like a cow of few years in his mind.

And God spoke: “you shall DEFINITELY have no Wii.”

The man sulked home at this, and gradually paused to consider the time and energy spent in pursuit of this Wii, this thing that may be easier to purchase in the coming months. And, lo, did his strivings seem to him of vanity and ego and consumerism. And he was ashamed.

So the man did choose to think instead of gifts of more lasting value, of peace and joy and compassion. Yes, he even resolved to seek these gifts with at least as much devotion as he had spent on the Wii.

Yet even as he pursued these things, still he was occasionally discovered muttering under his breath, “great, now how exactly is THIS going to help me break 90?”

fear, lies, and consequences

I think I was in the third or fourth grade when I first recall witnessing cruelty (or at least identifying it as such). That is, this is when I first recall seeing kids act as bullies towards other kids. And I don't even recall being an object of bullying, though I suppose I might have been and don't remember the specific incident. I just remember sensing that such a thing was now possible.

So I came up with what I believed at the time was a perfect solution. That is, I began spreading word that I was being trained in karate. Now, was this true? No. But in my mind, it inured me from the the threat of attack. And, honestly, it seemed to work, at least for a time. I was afraid, and this little white lie, this idea that I might be learning to defend myself, worked.

Mind you, I didn't flaunt this knowledge. I never pretended to attack anyone to prove myself. I just started a rumor, a lie.

As time went on, people started asking me about this professed knowledge, and I demured. In fact, I made a point of saying that I was just beginning to learn, that I really didn't have anything to show them. Yet still the questions continued, and my lack of answers for them only seemed to frustrate them further.

I remember about a year or so after I started this rumor, having three of the bigger, more athletic kids corner me on the playground. One was a wrestler, one was a boxer, and one was in football. And each of them took turns taking me to the ground, maybe because they wanted to test my ability to defend myself, though I don't really recall whether they mentioned anything about that or not.

And so this lie, this little thing (in my mind at the time) that came from fear, resulted in a series of events which created even more fear. And so it was that I gradually became a wallflower, one of those painfully shy social outcasts.

I tell this story not so much because it serves as a morality play about deception (though I like to think it does that), but because memories of this have been surfacing in me as I take steps towards this whole Christian community thing. And I think it is useful to name those feelings, to be honest about their source. And to think deeply about what they say about me, about what I'm looking for from community, about what my fears and biases might be.

But on some strange, juvenile level, I also think I tell this story because there is within me a need to tell the truth. I don't know karate. I'm perhaps even shamefully unable to defend myself, if the situation called for it.

morning thoughts

This morning did not start particularly well. My sleep had been restless, and the difficulty I had keeping enough blankets over my body left me with the impression of cold, of striving, of longing.

So when my five year old jumped up on our bed at 6:30 yelling "good morning!" at the top of his lungs, I knew the day was not starting on a particularly good note. So we played the DVR copy of one of his favorite shows, and I crept off into his room to try and catch a few extra minutes of rest.

Scant moments after lying down again, however, the regular morning onslaught of requests began: "MOM! DAD! I want Honey Nut Cheerios!", "Bring me juice!", "I want 'the three little pigs' one instead!"

So although it was with some sense of relief when I could finally escape into the shower, I was aware of a general tension, anxiety, and stress inside of myself. Or, perhaps better, I was not aware of it at first. I was going through the motions, getting ready for the day, repeating a litany of things that had to get done to myself. It was only when I noticed the soreness in my shoulder (a lingering golf injury) that I really noticed these things.

And in noticing this discomfort, physical and mental, I paused simply to relax, to breathe, to nurture peace in that moment. It was remarkable how differently I felt after that. I hope to get better at incorporating such moments throughout my day.

I was thinking of this because of my current search for "Christian community" and perhaps because of my interest in my relationship with Christianity more generally. Those who have read me now for some time know of my uneasy relationship with doctrine, and how I prefer instead to focus on holiness (which I believe is another term for developing love, compassion, happiness, and joy within ourselves and within our world).

In its own very small way, I believe that moments such as I experienced this morning are holy, are ways of encountering God whether or not we choose to put that label upon them. In my own experience, I don't know that Christianity always does such a good job of recognizing these as such. Holiness tends to be reserved for moments in church, moments of prayer, moments of sacrament. And don't get me wrong, I believe that these can be very powerful experiences of the divine, if we are open to them.

But I think that more important than what I believe, per se, is whether I am living a life filled with the kinds of qualities noted above. Without them, beliefs are empty. With them, beliefs can be fulfilled.

present with me

Not so long ago, I was giving a speech to a group of educators about autism. I was explaining that individuals with this disorder tend to lack something called "experience sharing" -- i.e., the understanding that we have our own inner reality of thoughts and experiences, that others have separate inner realities, and that the purpose of most human communication is sharing those realities with each other. So you'll see kids with autism do a lot of asking for things or repeating certain phrases over and over, but their ability to just comment on something (or to build a conversation by responding to someone else's comment) is limited. This is the primary reason why they tend to be delayed in speech, actually.

So we've been working on this ability with our son Patrick (Jacob mastered it long ago), and recently we've seen these big strides. He'll point out things that interest him and say "wow!" or "cool!" He'll point to his brother when he is in distress and say things like "Jacob is sad" with this look of concern on his face. In the last few weeks in particular, he is making it a point when we're cuddling with him to say things like "I love you, Daddy."

Now I know, I know that such moments are meaningful for all parents. The sense of one's heart melting in response to these words from your child is by no means unique. But I think this moment has been particularly meaningful for my wife and I this season because it has meanings on so many levels -- hearing his love for us, seeing his sweet personality emerge, seeing his progress on this thing we call autism, knowing that he is present with us in ways more complex and sophisticated than he has experienced in the past.

It is difficult to describe the joy, gratitude, and love I experience in such moments. And I am reminded at those times when I curse my inability to find a Nintendo Wii for our family this Christmas what it truly means to be given a present.

How cool is this?!

"famous"

Yesterday, I believe it was, a sad and angry nineteen year old man walked into a mall in Omaha (about two hours from here), pulled out an assault rifle, and killed eight people before ending his own life. Several more were injured, some seriously.

As details of this young man's life trickle out, we have learned that he left a suicide note, proclaiming to those he cared for that he no longer wished to live and that now he would be "famous."

Our society's sad fascination with the sensationalism has proved him right.

As you might imagine, stories of this are pretty much constant in Nebraska right now. Stories of those who were murdered, of those who survived, stories of the young man and how he'd just lost his girlfriend and his job at McDonald's. Stories of the friends who never thought he'd be capable of something like this.

I'm deeply saddened by all of this. Sad for the victims and their families. Sad for the family of this young man. Sad for the fact that this young man saw this as a way of becoming "famous." Sad that he was right.

It reminds me of a group home I worked at not so terribly long ago now. Two older adolescents who were residing there decided one night that they didn't wish to be there any longer. And even though the doors were unlocked, they feared that the night staff would call the police and prevent their escape. So they grabbed two wooden dowels they had in their closets for hanging their clothes, and beat up the old man who was keeping watch over them that night. Beat him to within inches of taking his life.

I think what saddens (even horrifies) me the most in both stories is the utter, callous disregard for human life. The utter self-preoccupation that allowed them to justify such actions, even if only for the brief period of time it took to commit such acts.

I know not whether our society is becoming more callous. I tend to think that claims that it is lose sight of just what society was capable of in times past. But assuredly we can no longer believe that such callousness is a relic of our past. It is here. It is now. It is fed and nurtured by poverty, hatred, ignorance, and loss.

I'm reading a book right now that discusses the idea of the "antichrist." In that book, the author writes that the "antichrist" is us, any time we hear the gospel and fail to respond.

May God forgive us. And may we grow as a society so that acting in the spirit of Christ is more likely to make us "famous" than what happened in Omaha yesterday.

An early start

I decided to try and make an early start on my quest for a spiritual home. In other words, I went with Meg to the local ELCA church she joined a year ago or so. Which was interesting in the sense that I had been there with her before, but mostly just to help watch the children. My sense had been that we were going to church as a family, rather than that we were going to join a community in worship.

So on Sunday I tried to focus on the latter (the joining a community in worship bit). And such was not always easy. OK, more accurately, it was nearly impossible much of the time with our 5 and 7 year old, autistic sons making frequent demands for our attention. But in those moments when I could focus on feeling part of a community, it was...fulfilling, is the word I think I'm looking for.

I do not know if this is the church that I will join. I'm not sure how even to pose the questions that would lead to such an answer.

But I do know that something felt right about having a spiritual home, about the sense of togetherness that I felt.

Thoughts on Annapolis...

Found this link over at Velveteen Rabbi's blog: here.

I couldn't agree more.

Hmm...

Your Brain is Green

Of all the brain types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

What Color Is Your Brain?

Well, as that great philosopher Kermit the Frog once said, "it ain't easy being green!" =)

2008

My friend more cows has challenged me to think of 2008 as a year of finding Christian community.

I hope this doesn't sound utterly silly, but the idea fills me with a bit of trepidation. After having been raised Catholic, becoming excited about religion through my Catholic education in college, and then feeling a bit burned by the whole thing as I entered adulthood...I guess I'm a bit gun-shy of investing myself in a tradition, in a community once again.

Part of this experience of being "burned" comes from my work as a counselor, actually. In the past, there were aspects of Catholicism (e.g., the refusal to ordinate women, teachings on sexual morality, etc.) that I strongly disagreed with -- but it was something of an intellectual matter. When I actually started working as a counselor, I was put face to face with brave people whose lives were actually HARMED by some of these teachings (particularly some of my gay and lesbian clients). The issue was no longer one of intellectual disagreement -- it became one of whether I could support an institution whose teachings HARMED people I cared for.

Complicating matters further, the clients were not exclusively Catholic, but from a variety of Christian backgrounds.

So I am wary. And I find myself wondering what standard to use when considering these matters? Do I consider primarily the official church doctrine? The attitudes of the religious leaders? The extent to which there is a strong "opposition movement" (if the church's official doctrine still holds that homosexuality is sinful)? All of the above (and if so, which factors should weigh most heavily)?

On top of this is the matter of my natural introversion...and, well, a sense from the work I do of how pervasive unhealthiness is. I pray that this does not sound conceited, but after awhile of doing this job...

How to explain it? I think I am confronted so often by dysfunction, by the limitations of others and by my own, it is easy to forget that there is also healthiness. Perhaps that is because health tends to be quieter.

Part of me yearns to discover and trust in that health, to have the faith to invest myself in a community and see past the idiosyncrasies to the more foundational goodness. It is tempting to say that the goodness in such communities is God, but I know I need more than that. I need to feel that the community is fundamentally, albeit in ways limited and human and flawed, good -- about promoting love and charity and justice and compassion.

Hope those thoughts aren't too rambling. Thanks to you all again for your thoughts.

on spirituality and relationality

It is an interesting phenomenon that in my questioning and skepticism of traditional forms of religion, I am met through this strange medium we call "blogosphere" by such kind, probing, and honest religious minds.

All of which is simply an overly wordy preamble to that which I truly intended to say -- namely, thank you all once again for your thoughts and insights.

What intrigues me the most at this point, I think, is the relationship between spirituality and relationality. Because on one basic level, I agree that our spirituality should not separate us from the world, should not focus our energies inward. It should, if it is genuine, connect us in ways ever deeper and more profound -- to our world, to ourselves, to our loved ones, to our communities. A spirituality that fails to do so is either tainted or incomplete, it seems to me.

And yet...

People find depth, meaning, and spiritual growth all the time through various forms of retreat and isolation, it seems to me. People attend retreats, go on long walks, sit in awe of a sunrise, meditate, pray, etc. And while an experience of prayer or of God might be somewhat different in groups or by oneself -- the inescapable truth is that the experience still occurs on the level of the individual (i.e., there is no such thing as a group consciousness). Attuning oneself to God can be shaped by a community, but it remains a process that occurs within each of us as individuals.

So it would seem that the issue of spirituality and relationality is not so much one of whether the spiritual formation occurs within a group setting (although there are advantages to this, noted in my last post) -- but rather one of outcome. That is, that spirituality should enhance our sense of relationship, of interdependence, of connectedness.

So those are my thoughts on the topic for now. I'd love to hear yours, if you would honor me with them.


"If we look deeply enough...we see that our heart is the sun." Thich Nhat Hanh

what I miss (a critical self-reflection?)

OK, so having set out my reasoning for why I am increasingly seeing myself as "spiritual but not religious" (though I agree with natalie's concern about how the word "spiritual" has come to be misused), I think it important for me to think somewhat critically about such a choice.

For there is clearly a downside. Perhaps several of them.

One downside, it seems to me, is the loss of a sense of community, a sense of togetherness in worship. One of my favorite parts of college was attending mass with friends, holding hands together during the "Our Father" and feeling that sense of community. I miss that. And certainly a choice to be "spiritual but not religious" is, in some sense, a choice not to pursue such experiences.

Somewhat tangentially, I also worry that a choice to be "spiritual but not religious" is simply going along with my natural inclination towards introversion, even isolation to some degree. Would it not be better to challenge myself? To experience God as part of a community as well as within the depths of my own experience?

Third, there is the risk mentioned of self-deception -- and the role of community in clarifying what insights might be "from God" and which are the result a kind of narrowness of vision, of my own sinfulness, etc. Would not a community allow for a kind of feedback? A kind of challenge? A potential for growth? (Parenthetically, I was musing about how communities themselves are not perfect in this regard. Community wide beliefs can endorse sexism, racism, and bigotry in various forms.) Still...

All this is to say that, as usual, I have no easy answers to such conundrums. (Actually, I don't think that this is a situation where there is a "right" or "wrong" answer, but rather one in which our hearts might validly choose between several paths.) But I do believe in questioning, in looking at things from various perspectives.

Thanks to you all for the generosity of your time and insights in responding to my previous post.

on spirituality and religion

I recently stumbled across a blog that raised the question of what people mean when they say they are "spiritual but not religious." And the various folk who commented on the topic suggested that such an orientation is generally a negative thing -- e.g., that such individuals want some connection with God (or however they would name their higher power), but are trying trying to avoid having their faith place any demands upon them.

As someone who is increasingly starting to think of myself along those lines, I feel a need to state why it is that I do so. And how I believe that such criticisms are misguided.

At the outset, let me make it clear that I have nothing but the deepest respect for those who take religion seriously, for those who find deep meaning within their religious traditions, and strive to incorporate values from their faith into their lives. My ramblings here are meant solely as a description of my own journey, not as a comment or criticism upon anyone else's journey.

I would begin by noting that faith has its roots in experience. History, theology, and tradition would all be largely meaningless if people did not continue to have some sort of experience of God in their lives. By this I suppose I mean the experiences of awe, wonder, grandeur, love, and gratitude -- or, perhaps better, glimpses of the transcendent reality that such experiences point to. This experience, I believe, is what people speak of when they describe themselves as "spiritual." At least, it is my meaning for that term.

Religion (or, perhaps better, religious philosophy, tradition, and certain forms of theology) attempt to comprehend and systematize such experience. And there is some value, I think, in doing so. We should engage our intellect around such experiences, contemplate the meaning of them, and allow them to challenge us.

Yet I would argue that the fundamental danger of dogma (which seems to be the inevitable outcome of religious tradition) is in the easy assumption that such attempts to systematize and understand such experiences are in some way equal to the experience (or to the reality beyond experience). By so doing, we commit the egregious error of assuming that we can "know" the will of God. And surely all would acknowledge the tremendous evils that have come into the world based upon such assumptions.

For me, choosing to be "spiritual but not religious" is mostly an effort to focus myself primarily on the kind of experiences described above. I strive to grow in compassion, love, understanding, and justice. I hope to be pushed outside of my comfort zone by these experiences, to grow and develop as a human being.

Yet I strive to avoid a sense of certainty that I am "right" in any absolute sense, that my conclusions and understandings of my experience are complete or allow me to judge others. Indeed, I believe that I should never hold onto any belief so strongly that I lose the capacity for compassion towards others. Because in doing so, I would allow my belief to interfere with the more fundamental goals of spirituality -- to grow in love, compassion, peace, justice, and understanding.

My own experience is that there has been much evil from people believing what their religious tradition tells them to believe -- that homosexuality is evil, that women should be subservient to men, etc. I believe that this process can lead people to believe things that they don't want to believe, to insist that they only believe something because they must obey "God's will." In so doing, they trust that God's will is more readily known in the pages of a book than from the experience of their soul.

I also believe that Christian religious traditions grow more true to Christ when they reject or ignore such teachings in the name of adherence to core Christian principles of love, compassion, and justice.

So at least for now, I think I shall remain "spiritual but not religious." I shall choose to keep my focus on the experience itself rather than on efforts to make sense of such experiences. I trust fully neither my own judgments in this regard nor the judgments of others. I trust only that God continues to communicate with the world, that God's call of love for us challenges us to grow in love ourselves.

on hammers and feelings

There's an old saying (I think it may have been by Maslow) that goes that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

I've been thinking about that saying on a couple of fronts lately. The first thing that reminded me of that saying is a book I'm reading on mindfulness and depression. The basic gist of the book is that depression is generated (or at least exacerbated) when our analytical mind tries to "fix" an inner, distressing feeling. Since the feeling might not have an external cause, the analytical mind might say things like "I shouldn't feel this way" or "I should be over this." This line of reasoning fails to soothe the emotion, and the continued presence of the emotion exacerbates the analytical mind's sense that something is "wrong" and has to be "solved." Thus is created the kind of rumination which often plays a key role in perpetuating depression.

The book's proposed solution is to use mindfulness, to accept the presence of a distressing emotion rather than trying to "fix" the emotion. But what it got me thinking about is how our society trains us to be so analytical, so problem/solution focused. And in so doing, we end up with a tool (and a useful one) -- but one that can lead to counter-productive approaches to some problems. Interesting.

The other area that has had me thinking about Maslow's quote has to do with discipline. Day after day in my practice, I see parents who come to me with "out of control" children, who have been using increasingly severe forms of discipline in response to their child's outbursts. And I talk to them about how discipline is great for setting clear limits and providing a motivation to improve a child's behavior. But so often that isn't the problem. The child knows what's expected, what's "right" and "wrong." And they wish they could stop getting into trouble. The problem lies in that their mind becomes rigid and inflexible -- unable to think of others' perspectives or alternative ways to get their needs met. The child's inflexibility is met by their parent's inflexibility and produces...an outburst.

So I work with them on what Ross Greene calls "Plan B" (which is just a fancy term for using collaborative problem solving). And we talk about how to make it work so that it isn't simply "giving in" or "having to have their way," but actually siding with their child and working together to solve the problem.

I'm always struck by the frequency with which parents are resistant to trying this approach. They have so much fear of "losing" in some supposed contest with their child. They seem not to realize that they are already "losing" in the only areas that matter -- in terms of outcome, trust, communication, and relationship. But, again, this way of thinking stems from the fact that they feel they only have this one tool (of discipline) with which to address the child's poor behaviors.

I'm reminded that I, too, surely have my own limitations in this regard, times when I fail to realize, recognize, or use alternative ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. I pray that I may learn to be open to more and more such tools.

Peace.

Halloween

Just thought I'd share a picture of my two boys in their Halloween finest. Patrick is the intrepid firefighter, while Jacob was originally planning to go as "Diego" (from the popular kid's show) -- but ultimately refused to don the costume, and instead chose to go as Elmo.

covenant

I just finished reading the book "Fatal Revenant" by Stephen R. Donaldson yesterday. It's really, really good.

Reading Donaldson's books always feels like something of a time warp for me, actually. I read the first book in the series of adventures involving Thomas Covenant when I was maybe in the sixth or seventh grade. I remember sitting in a tent at Boy Scout camp, pulling out my flashlight at night to read another chapter.

Which, you'd think, would mean that these were adventurous but fairly simple books, filled with reasonably straight-forward characters and conflicts. Not so. Actually, I think one of the reasons the books drew my attention was that they confused me. Thomas Covenant was my first real exposure to an anti-hero. He is, at least in the beginning, a deeply flawed man, pulled into another universe and hailed as it's savior. The good people of this fictitious "Land" refuse to judge him, even though he acts abominably at times, refuses to acknowledge that the Land is even real, and repeatedly refuses to be of any real help to them despite their peril. In an effort to maintain his sanity, he even refers to himself as "the unbeliever."

And yet...this flawed man comes to love the Land and its people. And in the end he saves the world, facing and overcoming perhaps the most vivid literary description of evil incarnate I have ever come across.

The stories are vividly imagined, complex, and increasingly sophisticated. The characters struggle with self-doubt, with the threat that their choices are unwittingly serving evil, with despair and hope and redemption. I enjoy them much more than, say, Tolkien's works (though I really enjoy Tolkien) -- because in some fundamental sense the characters seem more real.

They're a good real. Highly recommended.

heresy

Things have not been well in the hearts and souls of Nebraskans lately. A beloved coach was fired several years ago because the new Athletic director, Steve Pederson, said that he would not stand to see Nebraska football "...gravitate towards mediocrity." Mind you, the team's record that year was 9-3.

We haven't had a year with that many wins since.

And to add insult to injury, Nebraska has suffered devastating losses already this year, most recently at a home game to Missouri. If I recall right, it was Nebraska's worst home loss in nearly fifty years.

So yesterday the athletic director was fired.

Today the legendary Nebraska football coach, Tom Osborne, was hired to replace him -- at least on an interim basis.

Understand that for Nebraska football fans, this is basically like saying that Jesus has returned to earth solely for the purpose of reviving your troubled and beloved football program. Such has been the level of excitement in our state.

It might be tempting to use this as a moment of reflection, to ask about our state's (even our nation's) priorities. To wonder why we react this way to a new athletic director, but hardly even notice if a new academic director is put in place.

But at least for now, I look at the faces in the stores and gas stations beaming with hope and pride, and I think that today has been a good day.