I've often heard it said that finding a job, when one is unemployed, is a job. If only that were true.
In my opinion, looking for a job is often a lot harder than working at a job once one has procured employment.
With a typical job, one has a reasonable amount of certainty that one's hard work will pay off. As long as one is employed, there is a reasonable guarantee of a paycheck every week, every two weeks or every month.
When one is unemployed, on the other hand, one can easily spend many hours trying to find work, only to turn up empty handed at the end of the week.
With a job, one may have to deal with the stress of the job itself (especially when working for people who treat one with great disrespect), but one doesn't have the added stress of trying to figure out how to obtain adequate food, how to keep paying one's bills, and how to keep paying one's rent (or mortgage) in order to avoid homelessness.
When one is unemployed, a substantial amount of time can be spent just trying to procure emergency assistance so that one can survive until one is able to find employment. And that's assuming that such assistance is available. Often, depending on the type of help one needs, the help one needs is not available.
When asking for help, rejection can cause depression, and to a state of mind which is not at all conducive to a successful job search. Even when help is available, asking for such help can be stressful and humiliating. Feelings of guilt and low self-esteem are not uncommon.
With a job, it isn't always perfectly clear what one ought to do in order to please one's boss, but it's still a lot easier to figure out what is expected of one when one is on the job than it is to figure out which strategy is most likely to succeed in terms of procuring a new job.
When searching for work, there are known strategies which increase one's chances of finding work, but there are no guarantees. One can do all of the "right things" and still turn up empty handed for any number of reasons.
I've had more than my share of jobs, and I've gone through more than my share of periods of unemployment. If I had been in complete control of my own life, I would have gotten one good job and kept it for the rest of my life. But that has not always been something within my power to control. So I just keep plugging, trying to do the best I can do in difficult and stressful circumstances, and hoping that in the end, it will be enough.
So far, I've managed to survive. But that is by no means guaranteed. And besides, it would be really nice, for a change, if I could do a lot more than just survive.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
When Common Sense Is Forbidden
NOTE: Please be sure to read the Update at the end of the following blog post after reading the post itself.
________________________
The term "common sense" can be presumptuous and misleading. The use of the term suggests that there are certain things which everyone just knows intuitively.
The problem is that there's always an exception to the rule when it comes to common sense. It might seem like common sense to you and me that one does not step out into a busy street without looking both ways to make sure there aren't any cars speeding in our direction. But it isn't common sense to a two-year-old. That's why the guidance of parents is such a necessity.
An adult who had been raised in a really primitive society in the middle of the rain forests of South America, and who was more familiar with jaguars and piranha fish than with automobiles, might likewise be lacking in an awareness of the need to look both ways before crossing the street. Such things usually have to be taught at some point, or else they have to be learned through painful experience or observation.
We tend to think of certain things as "common sense", not because they are universally known and understood by every single person on the planet, but because they are almost always known and understood by the people within our own circles of family, friends and acquaintances. When we meet those who don't know and understand those things, we sometimes find their lack of knowledge and understanding to be shocking and hard to understand.
There is another type of common sense, which has less to do with knowledge of facts than with reasoning abilities.
Most people seem to know and understand that two things which are mutually exclusive cannot both be true at the same time. We generally tend to assume that everyone understands that simple principle of logic. Unfortunately, that assumption is not necessarily true.
For example, let's say that a political pollster calls your house and asks the following question:
How likely are you to tell your friends to vote for the incumbent politician during the upcoming election? Would you say that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to tell your friends to vote for that politician?
Now, let's say that you answer the question as follows: "I will tell all of my friends NOT to vote for the incumbent politician."
How would you feel if the pollster then proceeded to say, "So, does that mean that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to tell your friends to vote for that politician?"
If you're like most people, I suspect that you would begin to wonder to yourself if the pollster was a complete and total idiot! After all, you've just finished telling the pollster, in clear and unambiguous language, that you will actively tell all your friends not to vote for that politician. It therefore logically follows that you are not at all likely to tell those same friends to vote for that politician! Repeating the question and forcing you to answer with one of the five available multiple choice answers written by the polling organization suggests strongly that the pollster is not listening to you very closely, if at all.
It ought to be clear to anyone whose reasoning abilities have not become impaired --- in other words, to anyone with common sense --- that the answer of "not at all likely" comes closest to your actual answer to the question.
But not everyone has common sense these days when it comes to such matters. In January, I lost my job as a telephone surveyor, because of a very comparable situation.
The survey I was conducting at that time was related to a private business, not a political candidate, but in every other respect, the situation was parallel to the scenario I just described in the preceding paragraphs.
Throughout the entire survey, the woman I spoke with had been saying, "Just give it the lowest possible rating." Over and over and over again, that's what she told me. So when we got to the survey question which ended up getting me into trouble, there was no question in my mind that she wanted me to give the lowest possible rating to that question as well --- not because I assumed that that would be the case before even hearing her answer, but because of the specific manner in which she actually answered the question.
In fact, if one paid attention to the manner in which she answered the question, it should have been clear that she really would have preferred to give a rating which was lower than any of the five multiple choice answers which I offered to her. If I had asked her to rate the company on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best possible rating and 1 being the worst, there is no doubt in my mind that she would have asked me to give the company a negative 1 (or lower), because none of the 5 available answers I'd offered to her sufficiently expressed her dislike for the company. Saying that one will actively tell one's friends NOT to use a company's products or services is stronger and more adamant than saying that one is not at all likely to recommend the company's products or services.
When the company fired me over the manner in which I recorded the customer's answer (by entering "not at all likely" as her answer, without actually hearing those exact words from the customer's mouth), they accused me of failing to clarify a "vague" answer.
Apparently, they define the term "vague" in a manner which is much different from the way in which the dictionary defines the term. I felt then, and I feel now, that there was nothing even remotely vague about the customer's answer. She made her feelings about the company known to me, in no uncertain terms.
But let's assume, for the sake of the discussion, that their characterization of the woman's answer as "vague" was accurate. And let's hypothesize that a surveyor from that same company called me after I was fired and asked me the following question:
"How likely are you to characterize the reason given to you for your dismissal as a good and fair reason? Would you say that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to describe that reason as good and fair?"
Let's say that I then responded by saying, "As long as I live, I plan to tell everyone in my circle of acquaintances that the reason given to me for firing me was incredibly unjust and incredibly irrational."
According to their own criteria, their surveyor would then have to repeat the question in order to "clarify" my ostensibly "vague" answer.
How absurd!
It's bad enough to lose one's job over such a ridiculous situation. What makes it even worse is that my right to collect unemployment insurance is now being challenged, based on the company's argument to the effect that I failed to clarify the woman's supposedly "vague" answer.
In my view, I was fired because I used my common sense, rather than annoying the woman (who was clearly already angry at my employer's client) by pressing her to give me an answer which was already abundantly clear to me.
Now I am in jeopardy of being evicted from my modest room at the Lawson House YMCA, because my right to receive the unemployment insurance benefits I desperately need in order to get caught up on my rent is being challenged for the same lame reason.
Even if one could argue that I should have ignored common sense and provoked the woman by compelling her to give me an answer which conformed to one of the five available multiple choice answers written by the client company, the most that one could truthfully claim was that I was fired on a technicality.
My job was to represent the customer's answers truthfully. I did that to the best of my ability. I did not deliberately violate company policies. I didn't press for clarification of the woman's answers for the simple reason that I didn't believe that the customer's answer was vague or that clarification was necessary.
So I have a final survey question for you. If I am denied my unemployment insurance benefits and put at risk of homelessness for the reasons mentioned in this article, how likely do you think I am to take such a defeat lying down?
Now don't be vague!
___________________
UPDATE: Fortunately, after a delay which caused me to experience some financial hardships, the Illinois Department of Employment Security chose to grant unemployment insurance benefits to me. My former employer filed an appeal in an attempt to try to prevent me from receiving those benefits. They lost and I won. I thought, and still think, that my victory over my former employer amounted to vindication with regard to my point of view about the matter.
Unfortunately, many prospective employers don't really care about the circumstances connected with a person's involuntary loss of employment. No matter how unfair those circumstances might have been, they have a tendency to just assume that the employer was in the right and the employee was in the wrong.
Of course, I could lie and claim that I quit the job, instead of acknowledging that I was fired. But there's just one problem with such a strategy, where I'm concerned, and that's the fact that I have a conscience. I won't claim that I've never told a lie in my entire life, but I've generally tried to be a person of honesty and integrity. Consequently, even if I wanted to lie about why I lost my job (and I really don't), I'm not sure that I could pull it off successfully. Practiced liars tend to do it well. Those who lie rarely tend to lie poorly.
The irony is that my honesty --- which ought to be seen as an admirable quality by potential employers --- has been a real handicap when seeking a new job. That helps to explain why I am still trying to find a new job, as of February 2008. It was great to get unemployment insurance benefits, but unfortunately, those ran out quite a while back. I've been struggling ever since.
I did figure out, after a long period of frustration, that there was nothing compelling me to volunteer information which could be held against me. But it's a rare job interview indeed in which one is not asked, at some point, why one lost one's previous job. I'm not going to lie when asked such a question. So I am handicapped, to some extent, every time I go to a job interview.
Having to deal with the entire situation for many months on end has been very discouraging. What makes it even more discouraging is that there are those, including some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, who have incorrectly assumed that the mere fact that I've gone this long without finding a job is proof that I'm not making a conscientious effort to find a job.
________________________
The term "common sense" can be presumptuous and misleading. The use of the term suggests that there are certain things which everyone just knows intuitively.
The problem is that there's always an exception to the rule when it comes to common sense. It might seem like common sense to you and me that one does not step out into a busy street without looking both ways to make sure there aren't any cars speeding in our direction. But it isn't common sense to a two-year-old. That's why the guidance of parents is such a necessity.
An adult who had been raised in a really primitive society in the middle of the rain forests of South America, and who was more familiar with jaguars and piranha fish than with automobiles, might likewise be lacking in an awareness of the need to look both ways before crossing the street. Such things usually have to be taught at some point, or else they have to be learned through painful experience or observation.
We tend to think of certain things as "common sense", not because they are universally known and understood by every single person on the planet, but because they are almost always known and understood by the people within our own circles of family, friends and acquaintances. When we meet those who don't know and understand those things, we sometimes find their lack of knowledge and understanding to be shocking and hard to understand.
There is another type of common sense, which has less to do with knowledge of facts than with reasoning abilities.
Most people seem to know and understand that two things which are mutually exclusive cannot both be true at the same time. We generally tend to assume that everyone understands that simple principle of logic. Unfortunately, that assumption is not necessarily true.
For example, let's say that a political pollster calls your house and asks the following question:
How likely are you to tell your friends to vote for the incumbent politician during the upcoming election? Would you say that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to tell your friends to vote for that politician?
Now, let's say that you answer the question as follows: "I will tell all of my friends NOT to vote for the incumbent politician."
How would you feel if the pollster then proceeded to say, "So, does that mean that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to tell your friends to vote for that politician?"
If you're like most people, I suspect that you would begin to wonder to yourself if the pollster was a complete and total idiot! After all, you've just finished telling the pollster, in clear and unambiguous language, that you will actively tell all your friends not to vote for that politician. It therefore logically follows that you are not at all likely to tell those same friends to vote for that politician! Repeating the question and forcing you to answer with one of the five available multiple choice answers written by the polling organization suggests strongly that the pollster is not listening to you very closely, if at all.
It ought to be clear to anyone whose reasoning abilities have not become impaired --- in other words, to anyone with common sense --- that the answer of "not at all likely" comes closest to your actual answer to the question.
But not everyone has common sense these days when it comes to such matters. In January, I lost my job as a telephone surveyor, because of a very comparable situation.
The survey I was conducting at that time was related to a private business, not a political candidate, but in every other respect, the situation was parallel to the scenario I just described in the preceding paragraphs.
Throughout the entire survey, the woman I spoke with had been saying, "Just give it the lowest possible rating." Over and over and over again, that's what she told me. So when we got to the survey question which ended up getting me into trouble, there was no question in my mind that she wanted me to give the lowest possible rating to that question as well --- not because I assumed that that would be the case before even hearing her answer, but because of the specific manner in which she actually answered the question.
In fact, if one paid attention to the manner in which she answered the question, it should have been clear that she really would have preferred to give a rating which was lower than any of the five multiple choice answers which I offered to her. If I had asked her to rate the company on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best possible rating and 1 being the worst, there is no doubt in my mind that she would have asked me to give the company a negative 1 (or lower), because none of the 5 available answers I'd offered to her sufficiently expressed her dislike for the company. Saying that one will actively tell one's friends NOT to use a company's products or services is stronger and more adamant than saying that one is not at all likely to recommend the company's products or services.
When the company fired me over the manner in which I recorded the customer's answer (by entering "not at all likely" as her answer, without actually hearing those exact words from the customer's mouth), they accused me of failing to clarify a "vague" answer.
Apparently, they define the term "vague" in a manner which is much different from the way in which the dictionary defines the term. I felt then, and I feel now, that there was nothing even remotely vague about the customer's answer. She made her feelings about the company known to me, in no uncertain terms.
But let's assume, for the sake of the discussion, that their characterization of the woman's answer as "vague" was accurate. And let's hypothesize that a surveyor from that same company called me after I was fired and asked me the following question:
"How likely are you to characterize the reason given to you for your dismissal as a good and fair reason? Would you say that you are extremely likely, somewhat likely, neither likely nor unlikely, somewhat unlikely or not at all likely to describe that reason as good and fair?"
Let's say that I then responded by saying, "As long as I live, I plan to tell everyone in my circle of acquaintances that the reason given to me for firing me was incredibly unjust and incredibly irrational."
According to their own criteria, their surveyor would then have to repeat the question in order to "clarify" my ostensibly "vague" answer.
How absurd!
It's bad enough to lose one's job over such a ridiculous situation. What makes it even worse is that my right to collect unemployment insurance is now being challenged, based on the company's argument to the effect that I failed to clarify the woman's supposedly "vague" answer.
In my view, I was fired because I used my common sense, rather than annoying the woman (who was clearly already angry at my employer's client) by pressing her to give me an answer which was already abundantly clear to me.
Now I am in jeopardy of being evicted from my modest room at the Lawson House YMCA, because my right to receive the unemployment insurance benefits I desperately need in order to get caught up on my rent is being challenged for the same lame reason.
Even if one could argue that I should have ignored common sense and provoked the woman by compelling her to give me an answer which conformed to one of the five available multiple choice answers written by the client company, the most that one could truthfully claim was that I was fired on a technicality.
My job was to represent the customer's answers truthfully. I did that to the best of my ability. I did not deliberately violate company policies. I didn't press for clarification of the woman's answers for the simple reason that I didn't believe that the customer's answer was vague or that clarification was necessary.
So I have a final survey question for you. If I am denied my unemployment insurance benefits and put at risk of homelessness for the reasons mentioned in this article, how likely do you think I am to take such a defeat lying down?
Now don't be vague!
___________________
UPDATE: Fortunately, after a delay which caused me to experience some financial hardships, the Illinois Department of Employment Security chose to grant unemployment insurance benefits to me. My former employer filed an appeal in an attempt to try to prevent me from receiving those benefits. They lost and I won. I thought, and still think, that my victory over my former employer amounted to vindication with regard to my point of view about the matter.
Unfortunately, many prospective employers don't really care about the circumstances connected with a person's involuntary loss of employment. No matter how unfair those circumstances might have been, they have a tendency to just assume that the employer was in the right and the employee was in the wrong.
Of course, I could lie and claim that I quit the job, instead of acknowledging that I was fired. But there's just one problem with such a strategy, where I'm concerned, and that's the fact that I have a conscience. I won't claim that I've never told a lie in my entire life, but I've generally tried to be a person of honesty and integrity. Consequently, even if I wanted to lie about why I lost my job (and I really don't), I'm not sure that I could pull it off successfully. Practiced liars tend to do it well. Those who lie rarely tend to lie poorly.
The irony is that my honesty --- which ought to be seen as an admirable quality by potential employers --- has been a real handicap when seeking a new job. That helps to explain why I am still trying to find a new job, as of February 2008. It was great to get unemployment insurance benefits, but unfortunately, those ran out quite a while back. I've been struggling ever since.
I did figure out, after a long period of frustration, that there was nothing compelling me to volunteer information which could be held against me. But it's a rare job interview indeed in which one is not asked, at some point, why one lost one's previous job. I'm not going to lie when asked such a question. So I am handicapped, to some extent, every time I go to a job interview.
Having to deal with the entire situation for many months on end has been very discouraging. What makes it even more discouraging is that there are those, including some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, who have incorrectly assumed that the mere fact that I've gone this long without finding a job is proof that I'm not making a conscientious effort to find a job.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Falling Between The Cracks
In the past few years, there has been much talk of "faith based initiatives" and the many ways in which the Church can do a better job than the state when it comes to helping the needy.
In theory, I believe that the Church is better equipped than the state when it comes to charitable works designed to help the needy. The Church was involved in charitable work long before most local, state and federal governments became involved in such work.
The governmental practice of avoiding anything even remotely hinting of religion has often meant that their hands were tied when it came to addressing the spiritual causes of problems such as criminality, drug abuse and teen pregnancy.
However, it would be false to claim that the Church always did a better job of addressing social needs than the government. In some cases, what the Church has to offer is really pretty lame.
I have been in a position in which I needed emergency help on more than one occasion, so I have had the opportunity to look into what types of help are actually available. Certain types of help have been relatively easy to find and procure. Other types of help have been considerably more difficult to obtain.
In this blog article, I want to look into at what types of help a person might conceivably need. I want to look at what the Church does right. I also want to look at what the Church could be doing much better.
FEEDING THE HUNGRY
Food is a fundamental need for all human beings. To their credit, many churches seem to understand that fact. Some support "soup kitchens". Others work with local agencies such as the Chicago Food Depository, in order to distribute food obtained from secular sources by means of food distribution centers staffed by church volunteers.
In neither case could it accurately be said that it is possible to obtain enough food to meet all of one's needs, but at least the churches do seem to be involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in feeding the hungry. In conjunction with government "food stamps" (which fairly easy to qualify for and receive), the programs offered by the Church can be sufficient to keep a person from starving to death.
That isn't to say that such programs are beyond reproach by any means.
For example, the scheduling is often done very poorly. Often, if a church has its own soup kitchen, that soup kitchen will only be open one or two days a week at most. If all of the soup kitchens would coordinate their schedules, then it would be theoretically possible for a person to eat every day of the week, just by going to different soup kitchens on different days. Instead, I've seen cases in which two or more churches will both schedule their soup kitchen days on the same day of the week, at the same time, so that it's literally impossible for an individual to benefit from both programs. Even though two or more churches are offering soup kitchen days, it may be that a particular needy person is unable to take advantage of all the help which is theoretically available, for the simple reason that the person cannot be in two places at the same time. That makes no sense to me.
Another thing that makes no sense is when a needy person has to spend so much money on transportation to get to and from a particular soup kitchen that whatever savings were realized by getting the free meal are lost by paying for the trip to and from the soup kitchen.
Here in Chicago, a round trip ticket on the bus and/or subway generally costs about $4.00. One can buy a good meal at McDonalds for that kind of money (if one drinks water rather than a soft drink). One can go to the grocery store and buy enough food for a good meal for that kind of money. (A meal consisting of ramen noodles and a can of chicken, for example, can be had for less than $3.00.)
If a poor person has $4.00 to spend, and if the choice is between walking next door and buying $4.00 worth of food (without having any related transportation expenses) or taking a bus trip across town in order to get a "free" meal at a church's soup kitchen, it may be a toss-up as to which is a better choice. In fact, in such cases, it often makes more sense just to go ahead and spend the money on the food, because doing so may take far less time. When one is looking for work, one cannot afford to schedule one's entire week around the schedules and locations of various soup kitchens.
Government food stamps are far superior in that respect. One can use them, regardless of where one lives, without having to travel halfway across town in order to do so. One might have to take a single trip across town in order to apply for such benefits, but once one has been approved for the benefits, one doesn't have to keep going back on a regular basis in order to receive those benefits.
The first thing the churches need to do, if they want to sell folks on the idea that they are as good at addressing the needs of the hungry as the government, is to create a similar faith-based program which is widely recognized by grocery stores and inexpensive restaurants throughout the city or region. Food vouchers could easily be issued by numerous churches which were all participants in an interfaith program, and the administrators of the program could then coordinate their efforts with private businesses so that the vouchers could be used almost anywhere, with obvious limitations on the types of food items which could be purchased. (No $30 steak dinners or $100 bottles of champagne!)
Vouchers could be obtained from any nearby church which was a member of the interfaith initiative, rather than forcing people to spend money on transportation in order to go get their food vouchers.
Another problem with many church soup kitchens is that they tend to operate on the assumption that the person being helped is able to be physically present at the soup kitchen at the time when the meal is being served. Who does that leave out in the cold? People who are struggling to get by on the small amount of money they're able to eke out of their minimum wage part-time jobs, that's who. If their employers schedule them to work on the same days and at the same times as the soup kitchens, then they have to choose between being fed or going to work. That's ridiculous. Offering meal vouchers instead would enable people to buy meals (even in fast food restaurants, if necessary) anywhere in the city, so that they need not choose between eating and working. The same comments are applicable to people who need to feel free to travel around the city in an effort to find work. It's hard enough to find a good job these days without being anchored to one region of the city during certain times of the day or week. A good food voucher program would mean that people didn't have to choose between being fed or going to job interviews in order to find jobs which would lift them out of their difficult circumstances.
Why doesn't the Church implement such a program? My suspicion is that the administrators of many church-based soup kitchens aren't really motivated primarily by a desire to feed the hungry. Rather, the food is just a lure to get folks in the door so that they can hear the gospel.
I have nothing against preaching the gospel. In fact, I wish that more people could hear the saving message of Jesus Christ. But I think it's morally inexcusable to offer charity with such strings attached. Listening to the gospel should be something folks do because they're genuinely interested in the message, not because that's what they're forced to do if they want to receive emergency help. My message to those who have to resort to such bribery to persuade folks to listen to their sermons is that they need to improve the quality of their sermons. Then the bribery won't be necessary.
Visit any soup kitchen and stand in line in order to get a meal. You will witness a strange phenomenon. Before and after the meal, when talking amongst themselves, many of the folks in line will be cursing a blue streak. But when the chaplain in charge asks everyone to pray, many of the ones who have demonstrated just moments before that they really have no deep regard for Christ will bow their heads and go through the motions of praying for their meals. Why? Because they know that it's expected of them. It's what they feel they have to do in order to get the help they need. This kind of a scenario breeds a type of insincerity which is spiritually injurious to those who are forced by their personal circumstances to play the charity game.
HOUSING FOR THE HOMELESS AND THE POTENTIALLY HOMELESS
Compared with what's available for people who are homeless or on the verge of becoming homeless, the food situation is relatively good.
Yes, there are homeless shelters. But take a look into how such shelters are actually operated, and you will quickly see that things could and should be done much, much better than they are.
First of all, most homeless shelters only offer a place to sleep at night. During the daytime, they're expected to leave and to take everything they own with them.
In the early nineties, I briefly looked into the possibility of staying at the Pacific Garden Mission, during a time in my life when I was seriously worried that staying there might be my only option. I discovered that they offered no storage whatsoever for one's personal possessions, during the daytime. If one had a suitcase full of clothes, one was expected to take that suitcase with one every day, when leaving the facility, because they would not store it for you in a locker or storage room during the daytime.
Imagine what a drawback it would be, when applying for a job, if one walked into the job interview carrying all of one's worldly possessions because one could not find anyplace to leave those possessions!
A properly operated homeless shelter would take into account the fact that people need storage for their possessions if they are to ever get back on their feet.
I'm not just talking about storage for the relatively limited number of possessions they can carry with them. Sometimes people become homeless solely because they cannot continue to pay their rent due to changing circumstances. Yet, they may already have a lot of furniture and other possessions for which they worked long and hard, back when they still had jobs. Having to throw those things away because there is no longer anyplace to put them can be heartbreaking and emotionally debilitating.
Some organization needs to offer free storage (for limited periods of time) to such people, so that they can survive without having to give away or throw away almost everything they own. That would even include parking for people who still own their own vehicles. Not having a vehicle can be a real liability when it comes to getting certain types of jobs (particularly when those jobs are located in the suburbs). One would not expect the Church to buy vehicles for such people, but at the very least, it would be nice if help could be offered so that such people didn't have to give away the vehicles they already owned! If every suburban church with its own parking lot set aside 5 of its parking spaces for such a purpose, it would make a huge difference in the lives of a lot of temporarily displaced people.
It would help even more if suburban families with extra spaces in their own garages or driveways would offer parking for those who had temporarily lost their own homes.
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Another drawback, related to most homeless shelters, is that they almost all operate on the assumption that any person who is homeless is in need of rehabilitation services. To someone in need of such services, that can be a blessing. To someone who is not in need of such services, it can be insulting and demeaning to be forced to participate in such a program. More to the point, forcing a person to waste time in a rehabilitation program which is not really needed by that particular person can actually hinder that person's ability to get a job, find a normal apartment and get back on his or her feet again quickly.
Certainly, it's true that people who are either mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol are more vulnerable to homelessness than the general population, but it does not follow from that fact that anyone who needs emergency housing needs rehabilitation. The only thing wrong with some homeless people is that they lack homes and/or jobs. If one is evicted for nonpayment of rent, it doesn't necessarily mean that one is irresponsible. It may simply be that one has been trying, without success, to get a job. In some cases, it may even mean that one has a low-paying job but has not yet been able to save up enough money from that job to get caught up on one's rent.
A related problem is that many emergency housing programs are only available to people with problems with addiction or mental illness or specific "politically correct" physical illnesses such as AIDS.
I have no problem with the idea that such people should be eligible for emergency assistance. I do have a big problem with the fact that there are so few options for comparatively ordinary people whose only fault is that they have temporarily fallen behind on their rent because they cannot find work and they cannot qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. Why should preferential treatment be given to people who have failed to resist the temptation to engage in extremely risky behavior, while those who have successfully resisted those temptations are sometimes less likely to receive the help they need?
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Wouldn't you think that it would make more sense to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, than to respond to such homelessness only after the fact? I suspect that if you looked at the actual numbers, you would find that financial assistance which would help people to avoid eviction by helping them to pay back rent which they owed would ultimately be less costly than waiting until those people became homeless and then dealing with them as homeless people. Certainly, it would be far less traumatic for the people being helped.
I find it both sad and strange that many churches seem to be far more interested in financing missionary endeavors in far away countries than they are in helping people in their own neighborhoods in times of crisis. I have nothing against missionary work, but I also believe in the wisdom of the old saying that charity begins at home.
If a person in crisis cries out for help to a local church, and if those cries for help fall on deaf ears, then why shouldn't that person distrust claims to the effect that that same church is using its foreign missions money in the way that it claims that the money is being used? While it is true that donations to one's local church are not to be thought of as some kind of insurance policy, it is also true that churches which respond with indifference to the crying needs of their own people ought not to be surprised when those who have received such a response conclude that their churches don't really care about them, and when they respond to such indifference by either searching for more caring churches or abandoning the Church altogether.
In addition to the fact that local churches ought to offer emergency rental assistance programs so as to prevent people from ever becoming homeless in the first place, such churches also need to be actively involved in helping unemployed or marginally employed people to find work so that the need for such assistance is not a recurring need over a long period of time.
While it is true that some people who can work refuse to do so, it is presumptuous to assume that because a person is not currently working, that person does not wish to do so. Getting a job quickly is sometimes much easier said than done.
Even if a church has very little in terms of monetary resources, virtually every church worthy of the name has a telephone and a list of contact information for members, to say nothing of connections with other churches in the area. So what's to stop a pastor or church leader from getting on the phone and calling everyone possible to tell them about a particular person's need for help, and to urge them to pray about doing whatever they can do to help that person?
These days, many churches also have their own web sites. What's to stop such churches from using their web sites specifically for the purpose of making their members aware of specific members who are in need of help? What's to stop them from using their web sites for the purpose of appealing for help on behalf of those who need such help? It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that if it was obvious that they were actively working toward the purpose of contributing to the material well being of others, that would draw more people to their churches, and it would ultimately enhance their own prospects for success.
Most churches do have the resources to help people in crisis. The fact that churches seldom use their abundant resources for that purpose is a sad commentary on their lack of real compassion for the people who, in many cases, have made their ministries possible in the first place.
------------
One of the biggest problems I see, when it comes to church-based charities, is that those who are involved in such charities often use that involvement as a means of imposing their own views on the people they are helping.
For example, when I looked into the possibility of receiving help from Pacific Garden Missions, I learned that they were not content to merely require that participants in their programs attend their chapel services. They also mandated that it was unacceptable for participants to attend certain types of churches or to listen to certain types of Christian music (such as Christian rock music)! In short, it wasn't just Christianity they were forcing on others, it was their particular brand of extremely conservative Christianity that they were forcing on others. I even seem to recall that their was a provision in their policy handbook which stated that it was unacceptable for participants in their program to attend Pentecostal or charismatic worship services!
I couldn't help but think that if they were really convinced that their particular take on Christianity was the correct one, they would not have felt the need to force people to adopt those views (or to externally conform to those views for the duration of their stay) in order to receive the help they needed.
Homelessness is inherently humiliating for the homeless, even without adding in such factors. To be forced to temporarily abandon one's own personal convictions (about matters which genuine Christians often cannot agree upon) merely adds to that humiliation. For a person who has been a committed Christian all of his or her life to be told implicitly that he or she is a second class Christian and that he or she must temporarily pretend to hold altogether different views in order to qualify for help he or she needs is just wrong, in my opinion.
------------
Back in the early 90's, I was terrified at the prospect of having to stay at the Pacific Garden Mission --- not because I was too proud to ask for help, or even because I thought that some of their rules were ridiculous, but because it seemed clear to me that being forced to do so would actually make my situation even worse than it already was.
As it turned out, God delivered me from having to stay there. Instead, a Christian I met during that time of crisis invited me to live with him, his wife and his son in their suburban home in Lindenhurst, IL. He even gave me a room of my own, and fed me on occasions. He helped me to find a job, and allowed me to save a certain amount of money to be applied to rent at a new place before requiring that I leave his home. His name was John Speckman. His wife was Debby Speckman and his young son was named Johnny. John wasn't perfect, but I will be forever grateful to John and his family for taking a chance and reaching out to me with genuine Christian compassion. It saddens me that I have lost track of him. (He was an engineer for NutraSweet, in Mt. Prospect, IL during the early nineties when all of this occurred.)
I hope that if I am ever in such a situation again, I will be able to find similar help from another Christian. But what I would really prefer would be that God would materially bless me so that I could pass that favor on to someone else.
Even though churches often have many social programs these days, those programs simply are not adequate to cover every conceivable situation. They are often based on demeaning stereotypes which are not universally applicable to specific people in specific situations.
We need more individual Christians, like John Speckman, who will recognize the limitations of social service programs, whether those programs are church-based or government-based, and who will do whatever it takes to insure that no one who needs help fails to receive help.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
In The Back Seat
Certain memories from one's childhood linger in one's mind. They can often take on extra resonance when one compares them with things which occurred later on in one's life. This poem describes such a memory from my own childhood.
In the back seat of my father’s old Ford,
I slept like a sailor at sea.
Knowing that I would be safe and secure,
for my mom and my dad cared for me.
Every Wednesday we’d come home from church,
after choir practice ended that night.
When we got home, carried straight to my bed,
I was certain that things were alright.
Oh, how I miss those days of my youth,
when my parents still loved one another.
Awful divorce; how I hate the vile word!
How it injured both me and my brother!
Long have I thought of those days of my youth.
Long have I wished they’d return.
Keep your commitments to people you love,
for love is not something to spurn.
To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
____________________________________________
In The Back Seat
© by Mark Pettigrew
© by Mark Pettigrew
In the back seat of my father’s old Ford,
I slept like a sailor at sea.
Knowing that I would be safe and secure,
for my mom and my dad cared for me.
Every Wednesday we’d come home from church,
after choir practice ended that night.
When we got home, carried straight to my bed,
I was certain that things were alright.
Oh, how I miss those days of my youth,
when my parents still loved one another.
Awful divorce; how I hate the vile word!
How it injured both me and my brother!
Long have I thought of those days of my youth.
Long have I wished they’d return.
Keep your commitments to people you love,
for love is not something to spurn.
____________________________________________
When my father would drive us home from weekly choir practices (at Oakland United Methodist Church), it was a long drive, so I would often lie down in the back seat and fall asleep. But I was seldom completely asleep. Usually, it was more like a groggy state halfway between fully asleep and being awake. I knew the twists and turns in the road by feel. When the car would shift in a certain way, I could tell instinctively that we were almost home, without having to sit up and look out the window. After pulling into the driveway, my dad would pick me up in his arms and carry me to my bed.
When I think of that time, it reminds me of how much I relied on my parents, and how much I trusted them. That kind of trust is a precious thing, and it should not be violated.
Regarding the line which says, "Long have I wished they'd return", it's pretty clear that those days will never return. My father passed away in 1999, and it had already been apparent for quite a number of years prior to his passing that our family would never be restored to what it once had been.
Nevertheless, when I wrote that line, I was trying to capture the feeling that I had, for a very long time after the divorce, that something precious had been lost when my father committed adultery, leading my mother to file for divorce. Even though I knew it was unlikely, I still hoped that my father would humble himself, repent of the things he'd done to hurt our family and reunite with my mother so that our family could be whole again.
*********************************************************************To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
Cross-Eyed Man
Here's another poem I wrote last Fall. I hope you enjoy it.
__________________________________________
I’m a cross-eyed man
‘cause I’ve been born again.
The blood of Jesus
washed away my sin.
If I keep my eyes
on the final prize,
the benefits of heaven
I will realize.
I’m a cross-eyed man
with a cross-eyed plan.
In a world of sin,
I’ve got to take a stand.
What I counted as gain
I now count as loss.
I love what Jesus did for me
on that cross.
__________________________________________
To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
__________________________________________
Cross-Eyed Man
© by Mark Pettigrew
I’m a cross-eyed man
‘cause I’ve been born again.
The blood of Jesus
washed away my sin.
If I keep my eyes
on the final prize,
the benefits of heaven
I will realize.
I’m a cross-eyed man
with a cross-eyed plan.
In a world of sin,
I’ve got to take a stand.
What I counted as gain
I now count as loss.
I love what Jesus did for me
on that cross.
__________________________________________
To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
Broken, Not Crushed
Not long ago, I wrote a number of poems, most of which pertained to my faith in Christ in some way. I thought I would share another one of those poems with you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My heart, once whole, is now broken
as on the altar I lay.
Searching, I look to the heavens,
not knowing quite what to say.
Prayer, once a ritual, fails me.
Nothing I say can suffice.
All that I know is my vices
grip me, as if in a vise.
Freedom is mine for the taking,
freedom from death and from sin.
I long to know His forgiveness.
I long to be born again.
Asking for mercy is painful.
This, I must freely admit.
But there are worse things than “painful”.
Now I’ve gone too far to quit.
Long have I carried these burdens,
long have I suffered this pain.
Tears are now flowing like fountains,
cov’ring this altar like rain.
Jesus is beckoning to me,
offering all that I need.
So I kneel down at the altar,
confessing every bad deed.
Now I am broken and humbled.
Now restoration is mine.
Joy is the fruit of repentance, and of His mercy divine.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Many people fear that if they humble themselves before God, confess their sins and ask for forgiveness, it will be a painful experience. They're right. It's never fun or easy to acknowledge that one has failed.
But it isn't a question of whether or not we will acknowledge our sins and our failures, it's just a question of when and how we will do so.
Will we acknowledge our sins willingly, in order to receive the blessings of God's forgiveness? Or will we wait until Judgment Day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? The pain of confronting our sins and dealing with them now is nothing compared with how painful it will be to do so if we wait until we're forced to deal with those issues.
Don't put things off any longer. Give your heart to Jesus so that you can know the joy of salvation.
*****************************************************************
To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
BROKEN, NOT CRUSHED
© by Mark Pettigrew
© by Mark Pettigrew
My heart, once whole, is now broken
as on the altar I lay.
Searching, I look to the heavens,
not knowing quite what to say.
Prayer, once a ritual, fails me.
Nothing I say can suffice.
All that I know is my vices
grip me, as if in a vise.
Freedom is mine for the taking,
freedom from death and from sin.
I long to know His forgiveness.
I long to be born again.
Asking for mercy is painful.
This, I must freely admit.
But there are worse things than “painful”.
Now I’ve gone too far to quit.
Long have I carried these burdens,
long have I suffered this pain.
Tears are now flowing like fountains,
cov’ring this altar like rain.
Jesus is beckoning to me,
offering all that I need.
So I kneel down at the altar,
confessing every bad deed.
Now I am broken and humbled.
Now restoration is mine.
Joy is the fruit of repentance, and of His mercy divine.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Many people fear that if they humble themselves before God, confess their sins and ask for forgiveness, it will be a painful experience. They're right. It's never fun or easy to acknowledge that one has failed.
But it isn't a question of whether or not we will acknowledge our sins and our failures, it's just a question of when and how we will do so.
Will we acknowledge our sins willingly, in order to receive the blessings of God's forgiveness? Or will we wait until Judgment Day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? The pain of confronting our sins and dealing with them now is nothing compared with how painful it will be to do so if we wait until we're forced to deal with those issues.
Don't put things off any longer. Give your heart to Jesus so that you can know the joy of salvation.
*****************************************************************
To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Trusting God Is Sometimes Easier Said Than Done
Every once in a while, I like to search the web to get additional information about the Pettigrew family. Today, I found the Pettigrew Family Genealogy Site, containing detailed information which was apparently compiled by one Pat Fincher Pettigrew before she went on to be with the Lord.
The site features a Bible verse of the day. As it so happens, the verse for today was:
"Don't concern yourself about what you will eat or drink, and quit worrying about these things.... Rather, be concerned about his [the Father's] kingdom. Then these things will be provided for you." ... Luke 12:29
I was undoubtedly meant to see that verse. I'm hardly unfamiliar with the verse, of course. I've known the verse for most of my life. (Matthew has a verse which says pretty much the same thing.) But I have to confess, it touches on a personal weakness of mine.
Some folks have major trouble with sexual sin or addiction to drugs or alcohol. But personally, I find that trusting God to provide for my needs on a daily basis is something I still struggle with. It's my own personal version of "Fear Factor". When the money starts to run low (and it frequently does), I start seeing terrifying visions in which I am tossed out on my ear with no place to live but the mean streets of the city of Chicago.
Why does this frighten me? For numerous reasons, but probably the most powerful reason is that I am not content to merely survive. I have a vision of what God wants to do in my life, and I firmly believe that it is achievable, provided that I can manage to avoid events, such as eviction, which would set me back many years!
The scriptures affirm that a man's life does not consist of that man's possessions. Very true. But there are cases in which possessions are crucial if one is to achieve certain things.
For example, if I were to lose my computer and my access to the Internet, it would be significantly more difficult for me to set up the online ministry I'm trying to start at ArtisticChristians.com.
When it comes to my fears of living on the street, there is a basis for those fears. I have come very close to losing it all, in terms of my material possessions.
I've never actually lived on the street, per se, but I've been in several situations where I would have had to do so if it had not been for the charitable acts of my fellow Christians.
It also helped that I wasn't too proud to beg for help.
Now, a man has to do what a man has to do, and if begging for assistance is what one has to do in order to survive, then one begs for assistance. But begging is no fun, and that's a mild understatement. Begging is humiliating. The reason it's humiliating is, in part, because the people from whom one is forced to ask for help sometimes do their best to make sure that it's a humiliating experience.
Frequently, one finds that the generosity of others comes with strings attached. Usually, those strings are emotional. It seems that some people think that offering charitable assistance entitles them to denigrate the person they are helping in ways which bear little or no relation to the actual facts of the situation. The mere fact that one has been forced to beg for help is taken as de facto evidence that one's character is severely deficient.
One pastor who helped me out in the early nineties accused me of being "lazy". This, despite the fact that he knew that I had only recently lost my job, and despite his knowledge of the fact that I was devoting approximately 16 hours a day to that job at that time.
It was a job in a retail music store. It took me 2 hours to get there on the bus every morning, and another 2 hours to get home on the bus that night. I worked from 10:00 a.m. when the store opened to 10:00 p.m., which was an hour past the time when the store closed.
If that was "lazy", I couldn't help wondering just what I would have had to do in order to prove to this pastor that I was a hard and diligent worker. Devote all 24 hours of every day to my job? Funny, I didn't see him doing that with his own job!
Yes, I lost the music store job, but it had nothing to do with being "lazy". I just wasn't making enough sales, despite my best efforts. Anyone who has ever worked in sales knows that that is always a possibility. If folks are clueless regarding such matters (as this pastor apparently was), I would suggest that they read "Death of A Salesman", by Arthur Miller.
I was and am genuinely grateful for the temporary help that the aforementioned pastor extended to me for a period of time when I needed that help, but that was no excuse for the abusive things that he said to me in order to force me to leave and find housing elsewhere at a time when I still did not have adequate money with which to do so (thanks to the fact that I had recently been robbed while visiting the Oak Park YMCA in order to try to get a room).
That was hardly the only time that sort of thing had happened to me. Memories of incidents like that one still burn in my mind even to this day. Such memories make it hard for me to trust God to provide for me. Yes, I've survived, but I've had to go through some things no human being should ever have to go through in order to do so.
When it comes to the role Christians have played in dealing with my difficulties, it's kind of a "glass half full, glass half empty" kind of situation. On the one hand, I have always received the help I needed, more or less. And as I say, I am grateful for that fact. Christians certainly could have responded with total indifference to my needs. To their credit, they did not.
But helping a person means more than just providing for that person's material needs. It also means being sensitive to the fact that being forced to beg for help or forbearance is inherently stressful for most normal people. It means showing kindness and love to the people you help, knowing that that is how you would want to be treated if you ever found yourself in a similar situation. (It's called the Golden Rule. Look it up in the Bible. Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.) I'm sorry to say that most of the Christians I've dealt with have fallen way short in that department.
Not that any of that excuses my failure to trust God for provision. I know, intellectually, that God can be trusted to provide for my needs. It's just that when the sheriff is banging on one's door at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, with the intent of serving one an eviction notice because one has fallen behind on one's rent, it's still difficult to incorporate that intellectual knowledge into the way one views the world. During such moments, the world seems like a cruel and hostile place, and God seems like he is pretty indifferent to the sufferings of those who have to experience that cruelty and hostility.
That visit from the sheriff that happened to me several years ago. I was already starting to sink into depression in response to my situation, and that visit from the sheriff made things even worse. Not long after that, I spent a miserable weekend at a local mental health hospital after trying to kill myself by swallowing more than an entire bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills.
At the time when I took the pills, I was just sick and tired of dealing with the stress of life on this earth. I was sick and tired of being told that God loved me by people who demonstrated, through their indifference to the truth regarding my own situation, that they really didn't care whether I lived or died.
Yet, I attribute the fact that I am still alive today to God's miraculous intervention.
That night, I knelt beside my bed, in fear and trembling, not knowing what was coming next. I poured my heart out to God. I told God that I just couldn't deal with living in this world of pain any longer. I longed for genuine relief. I longed with all my heart to be joined with God in heaven.
I told God that I wanted to die, but I added that if God wanted me to live, if God had a higher purpose for me here which I couldn't yet see, I was willing to accept his will and to do my best to do his will.
The next morning, to my great surprise, I awoke to a new day. The effects of the pills could be clearly felt. I could barely move my limbs. For about a day or so, my legs would not even support the weight of my body. But I was alive.
I now realize that that was a test of my faith. I almost completely failed the test. If I had not prayed that prayer of submission, I think I might have failed that test, and I might not be typing these words today. But I had not abandoned my faith. I have not abandoned my faith. I will not abandon my faith!
I know in whom I have believed. When I committed my life to Jesus Christ at age 13, in 1969, I was putting my faith in Jesus Christ, not in that imperfect institution known as the Church. Yes, it's true, the Church is in some respects the Body of Christ. But the Church is comprised of weak and fallible sinners. They have been saved, but in terms of personal virtue, they have not yet arrived at their final destination. And when I say "they", perhaps I should include myself and change the pronoun to "we".
My faith in Christ is real, but it is not what it ought to be.
If my faith was what it ought to be, I would live a fearless life. I would remind myself that Jesus himself suffered greatly while he was here on this earth. The scriptures tell us that "foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head." For at least 3 years of his life, Jesus was a homeless man. I don't know how many of those nights he had to literally sleep under the stars, but it seems to be clear that when he was not doing so, he was staying with other people who chose to offer him lodging for the night. He was not living in any mansion. He was not staying at any 5 star hotel. He was taking whatever he could get.
As for false accusations, Jesus is no stranger to those, either. He did miracles, and how was he thanked? He was accused by some people (often the religious leaders of the day) of performing those miracles through the power of the Devil! Talk about ingratitude.
Jesus knows my grief and my pain, because he's been there.
I write the above words because once again, I am going through a time of trial in relation to my finances. I know that God will provide for me and I will survive, but it's still stressful, because I don't like having to ask for help, and it is likely that I will have to do so again in the very near future.
I pray that I will receive the mercy and help I need so that this time of trial will be as short as possible.
I further pray that such help will be extended to me in a more loving and generous spirit than I have received from some people who have claimed to speak in God's name.
Most of all, I pray that no matter how people respond and no matter what happens to me, I will never abandon my faith, and I will never forget that God loves me with a love so deep that it cannot be measured.
The site features a Bible verse of the day. As it so happens, the verse for today was:
"Don't concern yourself about what you will eat or drink, and quit worrying about these things.... Rather, be concerned about his [the Father's] kingdom. Then these things will be provided for you." ... Luke 12:29
I was undoubtedly meant to see that verse. I'm hardly unfamiliar with the verse, of course. I've known the verse for most of my life. (Matthew has a verse which says pretty much the same thing.) But I have to confess, it touches on a personal weakness of mine.
Some folks have major trouble with sexual sin or addiction to drugs or alcohol. But personally, I find that trusting God to provide for my needs on a daily basis is something I still struggle with. It's my own personal version of "Fear Factor". When the money starts to run low (and it frequently does), I start seeing terrifying visions in which I am tossed out on my ear with no place to live but the mean streets of the city of Chicago.
Why does this frighten me? For numerous reasons, but probably the most powerful reason is that I am not content to merely survive. I have a vision of what God wants to do in my life, and I firmly believe that it is achievable, provided that I can manage to avoid events, such as eviction, which would set me back many years!
The scriptures affirm that a man's life does not consist of that man's possessions. Very true. But there are cases in which possessions are crucial if one is to achieve certain things.
For example, if I were to lose my computer and my access to the Internet, it would be significantly more difficult for me to set up the online ministry I'm trying to start at ArtisticChristians.com.
When it comes to my fears of living on the street, there is a basis for those fears. I have come very close to losing it all, in terms of my material possessions.
I've never actually lived on the street, per se, but I've been in several situations where I would have had to do so if it had not been for the charitable acts of my fellow Christians.
It also helped that I wasn't too proud to beg for help.
Now, a man has to do what a man has to do, and if begging for assistance is what one has to do in order to survive, then one begs for assistance. But begging is no fun, and that's a mild understatement. Begging is humiliating. The reason it's humiliating is, in part, because the people from whom one is forced to ask for help sometimes do their best to make sure that it's a humiliating experience.
Frequently, one finds that the generosity of others comes with strings attached. Usually, those strings are emotional. It seems that some people think that offering charitable assistance entitles them to denigrate the person they are helping in ways which bear little or no relation to the actual facts of the situation. The mere fact that one has been forced to beg for help is taken as de facto evidence that one's character is severely deficient.
One pastor who helped me out in the early nineties accused me of being "lazy". This, despite the fact that he knew that I had only recently lost my job, and despite his knowledge of the fact that I was devoting approximately 16 hours a day to that job at that time.
It was a job in a retail music store. It took me 2 hours to get there on the bus every morning, and another 2 hours to get home on the bus that night. I worked from 10:00 a.m. when the store opened to 10:00 p.m., which was an hour past the time when the store closed.
If that was "lazy", I couldn't help wondering just what I would have had to do in order to prove to this pastor that I was a hard and diligent worker. Devote all 24 hours of every day to my job? Funny, I didn't see him doing that with his own job!
Yes, I lost the music store job, but it had nothing to do with being "lazy". I just wasn't making enough sales, despite my best efforts. Anyone who has ever worked in sales knows that that is always a possibility. If folks are clueless regarding such matters (as this pastor apparently was), I would suggest that they read "Death of A Salesman", by Arthur Miller.
I was and am genuinely grateful for the temporary help that the aforementioned pastor extended to me for a period of time when I needed that help, but that was no excuse for the abusive things that he said to me in order to force me to leave and find housing elsewhere at a time when I still did not have adequate money with which to do so (thanks to the fact that I had recently been robbed while visiting the Oak Park YMCA in order to try to get a room).
That was hardly the only time that sort of thing had happened to me. Memories of incidents like that one still burn in my mind even to this day. Such memories make it hard for me to trust God to provide for me. Yes, I've survived, but I've had to go through some things no human being should ever have to go through in order to do so.
When it comes to the role Christians have played in dealing with my difficulties, it's kind of a "glass half full, glass half empty" kind of situation. On the one hand, I have always received the help I needed, more or less. And as I say, I am grateful for that fact. Christians certainly could have responded with total indifference to my needs. To their credit, they did not.
But helping a person means more than just providing for that person's material needs. It also means being sensitive to the fact that being forced to beg for help or forbearance is inherently stressful for most normal people. It means showing kindness and love to the people you help, knowing that that is how you would want to be treated if you ever found yourself in a similar situation. (It's called the Golden Rule. Look it up in the Bible. Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.) I'm sorry to say that most of the Christians I've dealt with have fallen way short in that department.
Not that any of that excuses my failure to trust God for provision. I know, intellectually, that God can be trusted to provide for my needs. It's just that when the sheriff is banging on one's door at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, with the intent of serving one an eviction notice because one has fallen behind on one's rent, it's still difficult to incorporate that intellectual knowledge into the way one views the world. During such moments, the world seems like a cruel and hostile place, and God seems like he is pretty indifferent to the sufferings of those who have to experience that cruelty and hostility.
That visit from the sheriff that happened to me several years ago. I was already starting to sink into depression in response to my situation, and that visit from the sheriff made things even worse. Not long after that, I spent a miserable weekend at a local mental health hospital after trying to kill myself by swallowing more than an entire bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills.
At the time when I took the pills, I was just sick and tired of dealing with the stress of life on this earth. I was sick and tired of being told that God loved me by people who demonstrated, through their indifference to the truth regarding my own situation, that they really didn't care whether I lived or died.
Yet, I attribute the fact that I am still alive today to God's miraculous intervention.
That night, I knelt beside my bed, in fear and trembling, not knowing what was coming next. I poured my heart out to God. I told God that I just couldn't deal with living in this world of pain any longer. I longed for genuine relief. I longed with all my heart to be joined with God in heaven.
I told God that I wanted to die, but I added that if God wanted me to live, if God had a higher purpose for me here which I couldn't yet see, I was willing to accept his will and to do my best to do his will.
The next morning, to my great surprise, I awoke to a new day. The effects of the pills could be clearly felt. I could barely move my limbs. For about a day or so, my legs would not even support the weight of my body. But I was alive.
I now realize that that was a test of my faith. I almost completely failed the test. If I had not prayed that prayer of submission, I think I might have failed that test, and I might not be typing these words today. But I had not abandoned my faith. I have not abandoned my faith. I will not abandon my faith!
I know in whom I have believed. When I committed my life to Jesus Christ at age 13, in 1969, I was putting my faith in Jesus Christ, not in that imperfect institution known as the Church. Yes, it's true, the Church is in some respects the Body of Christ. But the Church is comprised of weak and fallible sinners. They have been saved, but in terms of personal virtue, they have not yet arrived at their final destination. And when I say "they", perhaps I should include myself and change the pronoun to "we".
My faith in Christ is real, but it is not what it ought to be.
If my faith was what it ought to be, I would live a fearless life. I would remind myself that Jesus himself suffered greatly while he was here on this earth. The scriptures tell us that "foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head." For at least 3 years of his life, Jesus was a homeless man. I don't know how many of those nights he had to literally sleep under the stars, but it seems to be clear that when he was not doing so, he was staying with other people who chose to offer him lodging for the night. He was not living in any mansion. He was not staying at any 5 star hotel. He was taking whatever he could get.
As for false accusations, Jesus is no stranger to those, either. He did miracles, and how was he thanked? He was accused by some people (often the religious leaders of the day) of performing those miracles through the power of the Devil! Talk about ingratitude.
Jesus knows my grief and my pain, because he's been there.
I write the above words because once again, I am going through a time of trial in relation to my finances. I know that God will provide for me and I will survive, but it's still stressful, because I don't like having to ask for help, and it is likely that I will have to do so again in the very near future.
I pray that I will receive the mercy and help I need so that this time of trial will be as short as possible.
I further pray that such help will be extended to me in a more loving and generous spirit than I have received from some people who have claimed to speak in God's name.
Most of all, I pray that no matter how people respond and no matter what happens to me, I will never abandon my faith, and I will never forget that God loves me with a love so deep that it cannot be measured.
Monday, January 15, 2007
From One Jerk To Another
Yesterday morning, I attended Willow Chicago (the downtown Chicago branch of Willow Creek Community Church) for the second time.
After the worship service, Willow Chicago held a fellowship reception in the Windsor Room at the nearby Congress Hotel, since their contract with The Auditorium (where their Sunday worship services are held) apparently doesn’t include access to meeting rooms for such events.
As I approached the Congress Hotel, I looked into the window of the hotel’s gift shop. I saw what appeared to be a line of humorous bumper stickers.
However, the captions on some of those bumper stickers would not necessarily strike everyone as amusing. For example, the first bumper sticker I noticed had the following caption:
“Jesus Loves You. Everyone else thinks you’re a jerk.”
Alright, I made part of that up. “Jerk” wasn’t actually the word the bumper sticker used. It actually used a harsher word which rhymes with the phrase “brass pole” and which could be roughly paraphrased as “anal aperture”. But this is a family-friendly Christian blog, so I thought I’d try to keep things “clean” for the sake of the many Christians who think that certain words should be completely off limits.
I thought it was a bit ironic that I saw that message when I was on the way to a church event being held in that same hotel.
Putting aside the issue of the bumper sticker’s mild profanity, and putting aside the fact that it was obviously an attempt at humor on the part of the writer, I thought it was an interesting message which raised equally interesting questions.
In essence, the message on the bumper sticker seemed to imply that Jesus loves jerks because he is too naïve to recognize a jerk when he sees one. It implied that loving a person and recognizing that the person is a jerk are mutually exclusive.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nobody knows us better than God. If any of us really are jerks, you can be sure that God knows that better than anyone else.
I have been known, from time to time, to characterize some particularly unkind people (including some of my fellow Christians) as jerks. I’ve even used the other word that was actually on that bumper sticker, when people have really made me angry by treating me badly.
However, in my more reflective moments, I suspect that God thinks that we’re all jerks, not just some of us.
Admittedly, some of us are bigger jerks than others, but the Bible makes it clear: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
We have all acted in self-centered ways from time to time. Intentionally or unintentionally, most of us have hurt one another on occasions. And even if some of us as individuals have not ever hurt other people, we have certainly hurt God when we have insulted God by implying by word or deed that we were better qualified than God to know how we ought to live our lives.
The Bible talks about two kinds of righteousness. One kind of righteousness is what might be described as “relative righteousness”. To be relatively righteous is to be more righteous than most other people. Job, for example, met that criterion. That’s why the Bible described Job as a “righteous man”.
Provided that it is tempered by humility, relative righteousness has value. It’s good to strive to be a relatively righteous person. In fact, God expects us to do so.
However, there’s also another kind of righteousness: Perfect or absolute righteousness. We ought to strive for that higher level of righteousness as well, but the Bible makes it clear that no one other than Christ has ever lived a perfectly righteous life here on earth. Compared with the perfect righteousness of Christ, our relative righteousness begins to look pretty sad and pathetic.
A lot of people think that because they’re relatively righteous, in comparison with other people, that means that they are qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. Not long ago, I spoke with someone I care for deeply. He said that he knew he was going to go to heaven because he’d been a relatively good person who had “never murdered anybody”.
Such a statement is common in our society, but it shows a real lack of understanding, for two reasons. First, it implies that all one has to do in order to qualify for entry into heaven is to abstain from the most grievious sins such as murder. Second, it implies that murderers and others who have committed the worst sins have no hope of entering the kingdom of God. Neither one of those things is true.
God doesn't merely want us to be relatively righteous people. God’s standards are uncompromising. God requires perfection. Anything less than perfection makes a person unqualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. In terms of salvation, the extent to which you miss the mark is irrelevant. If you miss it by even a little bit, you’ve missed it.
It’s like being a deer hunter. You can miss the deer by an inch or a mile. Either way, you go home hungry, and the deer lives to see another day. What good is it that you almost hit the deer you were shooting at? When you're hungry for venison, "almost" doesn't cut it.
When it comes to pleasing God, we’ve all missed the mark. Some by a little, some by a lot, but we’ve all missed it. We all have a spiritual hunger that cannot be satisfied on the basis of our own inadequate efforts.
However, heaven would be a mighty empty place if God had not made any provisions for sinners to enter heaven. That’s why Jesus died on the cross for us. He knew that on some level, we were all rebellious jerks who didn’t deserve to go to heaven. Yet, Jesus inexplicably loved us anyway. That’s why it’s called “amazing grace”!
Jesus wants to spend eternity with us, despite our obvious and not so obvious flaws. Because Jesus was the only perfect person to ever live, Jesus was the only one qualified to pay the penalty for our sins on our behalf. He had no obligation to do so, but he did so anyway.
None of this ought to be used, as some immature Christians do, as an excuse to act like jerks. God’s grace and mercy can cover and forgive a multitude of sins, but we still have a moral obligation to make a conscientious effort to avoid sin. We still have an obligation to hold one another accountable for sins we may commit.
As much as possible, I try not to act like a jerk. Relative to a lot of other people, I think that I’ve done a pretty good job of living a morally admirable life.
Nevertheless, nobody but God is more aware of my shortcomings than I am. Consequently, I’m indescribably glad and grateful that Jesus has loved and forgiven me even when I have miserably failed to meet God’s standards.
Regarding what other people think of me or don’t think of me, I do want others to think well of me, but there is a sense in which it really doesn’t matter what other people think about me, just as there is a sense in which it doesn’t really matter what I think about others or about you.
Your judgments are impure. My judgments are impure. God’s judgments are perfect and unimpeachable.
In the final analysis (which is coming sooner than you may think), what God thinks about me and you is the only thing that really matters.
Don’t be caught unprepared for Judgment Day. Instead, I would suggest that you pray the following prayer, or something similar to it:
Dear God,
I’ve known a lot of jerks in my life. Sadly, I have to admit that I have sometimes been one of them. I have chosen my own way and not yours. I have rejected your wisdom and counsel. I have hurt you, and it's quite likely that I have hurt others. I have strayed from the path that leads to eternal life.
Please forgive me. Please set my feet back onto the righteous path once again. Please help me to help others so that they, too, can receive the glorious forgiveness you have generously offered to all who will humbly ask for forgiveness.
I thank you that you sent your son Jesus to die on my behalf. I thank you that you can be trusted to honor this request for forgiveness. I praise and glorify your holy name, for you alone are worthy of such praise.
In Jesus’ Blessed Name,
Amen
If you’ve just prayed the above prayer for the first time, or if you’ve just prayed something similar (possibly because the above prayer was not tailored perfectly to your own situation), please write to me and let me know that you’ve decided to follow Christ.
It would really make my day to know that I helped to play a role in leading you to make the most important decision that you will ever make.
Sincerely,
Mark Pettigrew
mark_w_pettigrew[at]hotmail[dot]com
After the worship service, Willow Chicago held a fellowship reception in the Windsor Room at the nearby Congress Hotel, since their contract with The Auditorium (where their Sunday worship services are held) apparently doesn’t include access to meeting rooms for such events.
As I approached the Congress Hotel, I looked into the window of the hotel’s gift shop. I saw what appeared to be a line of humorous bumper stickers.
However, the captions on some of those bumper stickers would not necessarily strike everyone as amusing. For example, the first bumper sticker I noticed had the following caption:
“Jesus Loves You. Everyone else thinks you’re a jerk.”
Alright, I made part of that up. “Jerk” wasn’t actually the word the bumper sticker used. It actually used a harsher word which rhymes with the phrase “brass pole” and which could be roughly paraphrased as “anal aperture”. But this is a family-friendly Christian blog, so I thought I’d try to keep things “clean” for the sake of the many Christians who think that certain words should be completely off limits.
I thought it was a bit ironic that I saw that message when I was on the way to a church event being held in that same hotel.
Putting aside the issue of the bumper sticker’s mild profanity, and putting aside the fact that it was obviously an attempt at humor on the part of the writer, I thought it was an interesting message which raised equally interesting questions.
In essence, the message on the bumper sticker seemed to imply that Jesus loves jerks because he is too naïve to recognize a jerk when he sees one. It implied that loving a person and recognizing that the person is a jerk are mutually exclusive.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nobody knows us better than God. If any of us really are jerks, you can be sure that God knows that better than anyone else.
I have been known, from time to time, to characterize some particularly unkind people (including some of my fellow Christians) as jerks. I’ve even used the other word that was actually on that bumper sticker, when people have really made me angry by treating me badly.
However, in my more reflective moments, I suspect that God thinks that we’re all jerks, not just some of us.
Admittedly, some of us are bigger jerks than others, but the Bible makes it clear: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
We have all acted in self-centered ways from time to time. Intentionally or unintentionally, most of us have hurt one another on occasions. And even if some of us as individuals have not ever hurt other people, we have certainly hurt God when we have insulted God by implying by word or deed that we were better qualified than God to know how we ought to live our lives.
The Bible talks about two kinds of righteousness. One kind of righteousness is what might be described as “relative righteousness”. To be relatively righteous is to be more righteous than most other people. Job, for example, met that criterion. That’s why the Bible described Job as a “righteous man”.
Provided that it is tempered by humility, relative righteousness has value. It’s good to strive to be a relatively righteous person. In fact, God expects us to do so.
However, there’s also another kind of righteousness: Perfect or absolute righteousness. We ought to strive for that higher level of righteousness as well, but the Bible makes it clear that no one other than Christ has ever lived a perfectly righteous life here on earth. Compared with the perfect righteousness of Christ, our relative righteousness begins to look pretty sad and pathetic.
A lot of people think that because they’re relatively righteous, in comparison with other people, that means that they are qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. Not long ago, I spoke with someone I care for deeply. He said that he knew he was going to go to heaven because he’d been a relatively good person who had “never murdered anybody”.
Such a statement is common in our society, but it shows a real lack of understanding, for two reasons. First, it implies that all one has to do in order to qualify for entry into heaven is to abstain from the most grievious sins such as murder. Second, it implies that murderers and others who have committed the worst sins have no hope of entering the kingdom of God. Neither one of those things is true.
God doesn't merely want us to be relatively righteous people. God’s standards are uncompromising. God requires perfection. Anything less than perfection makes a person unqualified to enter the kingdom of heaven. In terms of salvation, the extent to which you miss the mark is irrelevant. If you miss it by even a little bit, you’ve missed it.
It’s like being a deer hunter. You can miss the deer by an inch or a mile. Either way, you go home hungry, and the deer lives to see another day. What good is it that you almost hit the deer you were shooting at? When you're hungry for venison, "almost" doesn't cut it.
When it comes to pleasing God, we’ve all missed the mark. Some by a little, some by a lot, but we’ve all missed it. We all have a spiritual hunger that cannot be satisfied on the basis of our own inadequate efforts.
However, heaven would be a mighty empty place if God had not made any provisions for sinners to enter heaven. That’s why Jesus died on the cross for us. He knew that on some level, we were all rebellious jerks who didn’t deserve to go to heaven. Yet, Jesus inexplicably loved us anyway. That’s why it’s called “amazing grace”!
Jesus wants to spend eternity with us, despite our obvious and not so obvious flaws. Because Jesus was the only perfect person to ever live, Jesus was the only one qualified to pay the penalty for our sins on our behalf. He had no obligation to do so, but he did so anyway.
None of this ought to be used, as some immature Christians do, as an excuse to act like jerks. God’s grace and mercy can cover and forgive a multitude of sins, but we still have a moral obligation to make a conscientious effort to avoid sin. We still have an obligation to hold one another accountable for sins we may commit.
As much as possible, I try not to act like a jerk. Relative to a lot of other people, I think that I’ve done a pretty good job of living a morally admirable life.
Nevertheless, nobody but God is more aware of my shortcomings than I am. Consequently, I’m indescribably glad and grateful that Jesus has loved and forgiven me even when I have miserably failed to meet God’s standards.
Regarding what other people think of me or don’t think of me, I do want others to think well of me, but there is a sense in which it really doesn’t matter what other people think about me, just as there is a sense in which it doesn’t really matter what I think about others or about you.
Your judgments are impure. My judgments are impure. God’s judgments are perfect and unimpeachable.
In the final analysis (which is coming sooner than you may think), what God thinks about me and you is the only thing that really matters.
Don’t be caught unprepared for Judgment Day. Instead, I would suggest that you pray the following prayer, or something similar to it:
Dear God,
I’ve known a lot of jerks in my life. Sadly, I have to admit that I have sometimes been one of them. I have chosen my own way and not yours. I have rejected your wisdom and counsel. I have hurt you, and it's quite likely that I have hurt others. I have strayed from the path that leads to eternal life.
Please forgive me. Please set my feet back onto the righteous path once again. Please help me to help others so that they, too, can receive the glorious forgiveness you have generously offered to all who will humbly ask for forgiveness.
I thank you that you sent your son Jesus to die on my behalf. I thank you that you can be trusted to honor this request for forgiveness. I praise and glorify your holy name, for you alone are worthy of such praise.
In Jesus’ Blessed Name,
Amen
If you’ve just prayed the above prayer for the first time, or if you’ve just prayed something similar (possibly because the above prayer was not tailored perfectly to your own situation), please write to me and let me know that you’ve decided to follow Christ.
It would really make my day to know that I helped to play a role in leading you to make the most important decision that you will ever make.
Sincerely,
Mark Pettigrew
mark_w_pettigrew[at]hotmail[dot]com
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
My Joke Of The Day
QUESTION
What do you get when you cross a godly liberator with a Native American from the frozen north?
ANSWER
EskiMoses
Feel free to use the above joke in any and all comedy routines, if you're performing for a classroom of six year olds and you want to tell a joke with a slightly Biblical flavor.
Corny jokes, unfortunately, aren't considered to be "cool" or "hip" or whatever the latest term is for people who have tragically outgrown the simple joys of childhood. Consequently, I wouldn't advise using the above joke in your routine if you're appearing at a typical comedy nightclub in any major city.
In fact, if you're a committed Christian, you might want to avoid doing any comedy routines at such places at all. Most of the "comedians" at such clubs seem to think that the quintessential act of cleverness is to use as much profanity as possible, along with a lot of "jokes" that ridicule conservative Christians and/or Republicans.
Whatever happened to people like Jonathan Winters? Jonathan Winters was hilarious, and he managed to make people laugh without ever doing much of anything which would have made him unwelcome at a church picnic.
Steven Wright is another comedian I like. His dry sense of humor revolves heavily around playing with the English language in clever and unexpected ways. If he has any animus towards Christians or political conservatives, I haven't yet heard him tell a joke which revealed those feelings.
Carrot Top is pretty funny, too, and his use of special humorous props is generally very clever.
In troubled times, humor is sometimes one of the few things we can rely on to help us to grin and bear it. Comedy can be a ministry of sorts, whether it has an overtly religious flavor or not.
But comedy also has a dark side. The idea that nothing should be sacred seems to be all too prevalent among professional jokesters.
God will have the last laugh. I pray that more and more comedians will learn to temper their humor with a recognition of that fact.
What do you get when you cross a godly liberator with a Native American from the frozen north?
ANSWER
EskiMoses
Feel free to use the above joke in any and all comedy routines, if you're performing for a classroom of six year olds and you want to tell a joke with a slightly Biblical flavor.
Corny jokes, unfortunately, aren't considered to be "cool" or "hip" or whatever the latest term is for people who have tragically outgrown the simple joys of childhood. Consequently, I wouldn't advise using the above joke in your routine if you're appearing at a typical comedy nightclub in any major city.
In fact, if you're a committed Christian, you might want to avoid doing any comedy routines at such places at all. Most of the "comedians" at such clubs seem to think that the quintessential act of cleverness is to use as much profanity as possible, along with a lot of "jokes" that ridicule conservative Christians and/or Republicans.
Whatever happened to people like Jonathan Winters? Jonathan Winters was hilarious, and he managed to make people laugh without ever doing much of anything which would have made him unwelcome at a church picnic.
Steven Wright is another comedian I like. His dry sense of humor revolves heavily around playing with the English language in clever and unexpected ways. If he has any animus towards Christians or political conservatives, I haven't yet heard him tell a joke which revealed those feelings.
Carrot Top is pretty funny, too, and his use of special humorous props is generally very clever.
In troubled times, humor is sometimes one of the few things we can rely on to help us to grin and bear it. Comedy can be a ministry of sorts, whether it has an overtly religious flavor or not.
But comedy also has a dark side. The idea that nothing should be sacred seems to be all too prevalent among professional jokesters.
God will have the last laugh. I pray that more and more comedians will learn to temper their humor with a recognition of that fact.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
With Friends Like These
When I voted for President Bush during the 2000 election and the 2004 election, I did so in large part because he had paid lip service to the pro-life movement, whereas both Al Gore and John Kerry had openly paid homage to the abortion industry. To some extent, I knew that Bush's claims amounted to lip service, but I felt that even lip service was better than no service at all.
I passionately felt and still feel that abortion was and is the most important issue facing our nation. It wasn't that I didn't care about other issues. But public acceptance of an act which takes roughly a million innocent American human lives every year (and which took up to 1.5 million lives a year for many years) has got to qualify as a major national crisis.
It was clear, even during the 2000 election, that Bush was hardly the dream candidate I might have wished for. He seemed to want to take little baby steps in terms of moving the nation in a direction consistent with complete respect for all phases of human life. I would have much preferred an articulate and passionate pro-life spokesperson such as Alan Keyes, because Keyes really seemed to care about the unborn victims of abortion. But baby steps are better than no steps at all, and thanks to the inequitable way in which national primaries are held, I never got the chance to vote for Keyes when he was a candidate for President. So I took what I could get.
Sadly, with very few exceptions, Bush has consistently put the pro-life issue on the back burner in terms of his priorities. In that respect, he is not noticeably different from his father.
I realize that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq were both important in Bush's mind, but even if he was right about both issues (and that's highly debatable in the case of Iraq), the fact of the matter is that the total number of people killed by both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined are miniscule compared with the numbers of people legally killed every year by abortionists in the United States during the past 30 plus years.
Considering the extent to which the abortion issue and the pro-life vote played a major role in putting Bush in office and keeping him there, the fact that Bush has done so little to advance the pro-life cause seems like a betrayal to me. In my opinion, the significant political losses Republicans experienced in 2006 are due not only to Bush's mishandling of the war in Iraq, but also to the fact that most pro-life Republicans found it very hard to get excited about a political party which had promised much but delivered very little (despite its simultaneous control of the Senate, the House and the Presidency) in terms of saving unborn children.
One of the saddest ironies when it comes to the abortion issue is the extent to which Republicans, who are often characterized as defenders of the unborn, have played a role in terms of aiding and abetting the defenders of legal abortion time and time again.
After all, it was Nixon, not Kennedy or Johnson, who appointed Harry Blackmun, the Chief Justice who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.
Later, when Nixon resigned amidst the scandal of Watergate, his successor Gerald Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. According to this article, Stevens "joined a 2000 decision called Stenberg v. Carhart in which the court struck down a Nebraska law banning so-called 'partial-birth' abortions."
With "friends" like Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, the pro-life movement needed no enemies. (Admittedly, there was no pro-life movement when Nixon first came into power. It was partially on account of Nixon's appointment of Harry Blackmun that such a movement became necessary.)
Gerald Ford took office a year after Roe v. Wade was made into law. If Ford had had any pro-life principles at all, he would have expended a considerable amount of effort making sure that the next judicial appointment went to a man who recognized the stupidity of the Roe v. Wade decision. Say what you will about Nixon, but at least he can be excused to some extent by the possibility that he may not have realized that Harry Blackmun would vote to overturn the abortion laws of most of the states in the union. Gerald Ford had no such excuse.
Instead of doing his best to appoint a judge who would have helped to overthrow Roe v. Wade, Ford turned the entire appointment process over to Attorney General Edward Levi, whose primary criterion when selecting Stevens seems to have been that the two men were buddies from Chicago, where Stevens was serving as a federal appeals court judge and where Levi had been the president of the University of Chicago. (Those who now blame Donald Rumsfeld for much that has gone wrong in Iraq should also pause to consider that Rumsfeld's suggestions to Ford regarding Edward Levi played a significant role in Ford's choice of Levi and in Levi's subsequent choice of John Paul Stevens. It would appear that conservatives and liberals both have good reason to dislike Mr. Rumsfeld.)
Ford's choice of Levi was based on his desire for a person who was "nonpolitical". Apparently, he got what he wanted, in spades. Levi apparently cared more about personal friendships than he did about political principles, despite the fact that it was his job to insure that justice was done throughout the land. It isn't clear from what I've read whether Levi was pro-life himself or not, but if he was pro-life, then he was incompetent. He put his personal friendship with John Paul Stevens ahead of his job responsibilities.
According to MSNBC writer Tom Curry, Ford's most "profound" legacy was his appointment of John Paul Stevens. If appointing a man who helped to protect the status quo in terms of Roe v. Wade is Curry's idea of profundity, then Curry deserves to be in the pro-life hall of shame, along with Gerald Ford and our ostensibly pro-life president George W. Bush.
What does George W. Bush think of Gerald Ford? According to this article, Bush says Ford was a "great American". I beg to differ. Ford's legacy was to help insure that a bad judicial decision would remain in force for many years to come. And the fact that George W. Bush does not recognize that fact speaks volumes, it seems to me, about his level of intelligence and competence.
Am I sorry that I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004? No. As bad as he was and is, his opponents were many times worse. But I may begin to obstain from the voting process altogether if the Republican party cannot begin to get its act together and elect principled Presidential candidates who can be counted on to represent the values of the numerous pro-life people like myself who, more often than not, have played a decisive role in putting them into office.
I am beginning to agree with those who use terms such as "Republicrats" to suggest that there isn't a very significant difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party anymore. This was made especially apparent during the 2006 gubernatorial race in Illinois.
Rod Blagojevitch had made some reprehensible decisions while in office, such as his executive order forcing pharmacists to violate their own consciences, by dispensing what they regarded as pharmaceutical abortifacients, in order to keep their jobs. (So much for "choice". Apparently, pharmacists ought not to have freedom of choice regarding whether or not their hands are stained with innocent blood.)
Nevertheless, Blagojevitch won, because his opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, and her running mate, Joe Birkett, were indistinguishable from the Democrats in terms of their positions on the issues of abortion and gay marriage.
Birkett, who had previously claimed to be pro-life, based his unprincipled alliance with Topinka on his belief that she was the only Republican who could beat Blagojevitch. I thought at the time that that was a major miscalculation on his part, and the election results would seem to bear that out.
Joe seemed oblivious to the fact that the only way to beat an incumbent politician is to offer voters a significantly better alternative and then to appeal to one's political base in order to insure that people who recognize the superiority of that alternative come out to vote. Topinka lost because she was basically Blagojevitch in a skirt, notwithstanding her specious claims that she was a Republican.
Ironically, now that Birkett's 2006 running mate has lost, Birkett is trying to regain credibility with pro-life Republicans by claiming to back certain marginally pro-life measures pertaining to parental consent. Here's what I'd say to Joe if I saw him face to face:
"Sorry, Joe, but conservative voters such as myself aren't buying it. We don't easily get amnesia. We won't forget you unprincipled alliance with Topinka in 2006 for a long, long time to come. By all means, do the right thing and vote in support of pro-life legislation. But don't expect it to do you any good in the next election. That ship has sailed. You had a chance to do the right thing when it would have counted the most, but you blew it, buddy."
What happened in Illinois was heartbreaking, but hardly unique. More often than not, the small difference which does exist between the two major political parties these days is a matter of rhetoric, not a matter of substantive action.
Which is worse? To proclaim that one is pro-abortion and then to demonstrate that that is indeed the case, or to proclaim that one is pro-life and then do nothing to change the status quo regarding legal abortion?
Say what you will about the Democrats, but at least they are honest about their pathetic and immoral indifference to the intrinsic value of human life. That doesn't make me any more likely to vote for them, but it does make me feel that I have been cheated out of the opportunity to vote for candidates who share my own priorities, not just in word but in deed.
UPDATE: It bears mentioning that when it comes to the 2008 presidential elections, there are some big differences between John McCain (who has said clearly that human life begins at conception) and Barack Obama (who not only claimed that answering such a question was "above (his) pay grade," but also opposed Illinois laws designed to prevent infanticide). For me, the choice is clear. Even though I'm not convinced that the pro-life agenda is at the top of McCain's list of priorities, it is at least on that list. Barack Obama's election would be a huge setback for the pro-life cause.
I passionately felt and still feel that abortion was and is the most important issue facing our nation. It wasn't that I didn't care about other issues. But public acceptance of an act which takes roughly a million innocent American human lives every year (and which took up to 1.5 million lives a year for many years) has got to qualify as a major national crisis.
It was clear, even during the 2000 election, that Bush was hardly the dream candidate I might have wished for. He seemed to want to take little baby steps in terms of moving the nation in a direction consistent with complete respect for all phases of human life. I would have much preferred an articulate and passionate pro-life spokesperson such as Alan Keyes, because Keyes really seemed to care about the unborn victims of abortion. But baby steps are better than no steps at all, and thanks to the inequitable way in which national primaries are held, I never got the chance to vote for Keyes when he was a candidate for President. So I took what I could get.
Sadly, with very few exceptions, Bush has consistently put the pro-life issue on the back burner in terms of his priorities. In that respect, he is not noticeably different from his father.
I realize that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq were both important in Bush's mind, but even if he was right about both issues (and that's highly debatable in the case of Iraq), the fact of the matter is that the total number of people killed by both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined are miniscule compared with the numbers of people legally killed every year by abortionists in the United States during the past 30 plus years.
Considering the extent to which the abortion issue and the pro-life vote played a major role in putting Bush in office and keeping him there, the fact that Bush has done so little to advance the pro-life cause seems like a betrayal to me. In my opinion, the significant political losses Republicans experienced in 2006 are due not only to Bush's mishandling of the war in Iraq, but also to the fact that most pro-life Republicans found it very hard to get excited about a political party which had promised much but delivered very little (despite its simultaneous control of the Senate, the House and the Presidency) in terms of saving unborn children.
One of the saddest ironies when it comes to the abortion issue is the extent to which Republicans, who are often characterized as defenders of the unborn, have played a role in terms of aiding and abetting the defenders of legal abortion time and time again.
After all, it was Nixon, not Kennedy or Johnson, who appointed Harry Blackmun, the Chief Justice who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.
Later, when Nixon resigned amidst the scandal of Watergate, his successor Gerald Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. According to this article, Stevens "joined a 2000 decision called Stenberg v. Carhart in which the court struck down a Nebraska law banning so-called 'partial-birth' abortions."
With "friends" like Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, the pro-life movement needed no enemies. (Admittedly, there was no pro-life movement when Nixon first came into power. It was partially on account of Nixon's appointment of Harry Blackmun that such a movement became necessary.)
Gerald Ford took office a year after Roe v. Wade was made into law. If Ford had had any pro-life principles at all, he would have expended a considerable amount of effort making sure that the next judicial appointment went to a man who recognized the stupidity of the Roe v. Wade decision. Say what you will about Nixon, but at least he can be excused to some extent by the possibility that he may not have realized that Harry Blackmun would vote to overturn the abortion laws of most of the states in the union. Gerald Ford had no such excuse.
Instead of doing his best to appoint a judge who would have helped to overthrow Roe v. Wade, Ford turned the entire appointment process over to Attorney General Edward Levi, whose primary criterion when selecting Stevens seems to have been that the two men were buddies from Chicago, where Stevens was serving as a federal appeals court judge and where Levi had been the president of the University of Chicago. (Those who now blame Donald Rumsfeld for much that has gone wrong in Iraq should also pause to consider that Rumsfeld's suggestions to Ford regarding Edward Levi played a significant role in Ford's choice of Levi and in Levi's subsequent choice of John Paul Stevens. It would appear that conservatives and liberals both have good reason to dislike Mr. Rumsfeld.)
Ford's choice of Levi was based on his desire for a person who was "nonpolitical". Apparently, he got what he wanted, in spades. Levi apparently cared more about personal friendships than he did about political principles, despite the fact that it was his job to insure that justice was done throughout the land. It isn't clear from what I've read whether Levi was pro-life himself or not, but if he was pro-life, then he was incompetent. He put his personal friendship with John Paul Stevens ahead of his job responsibilities.
According to MSNBC writer Tom Curry, Ford's most "profound" legacy was his appointment of John Paul Stevens. If appointing a man who helped to protect the status quo in terms of Roe v. Wade is Curry's idea of profundity, then Curry deserves to be in the pro-life hall of shame, along with Gerald Ford and our ostensibly pro-life president George W. Bush.
What does George W. Bush think of Gerald Ford? According to this article, Bush says Ford was a "great American". I beg to differ. Ford's legacy was to help insure that a bad judicial decision would remain in force for many years to come. And the fact that George W. Bush does not recognize that fact speaks volumes, it seems to me, about his level of intelligence and competence.
Am I sorry that I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004? No. As bad as he was and is, his opponents were many times worse. But I may begin to obstain from the voting process altogether if the Republican party cannot begin to get its act together and elect principled Presidential candidates who can be counted on to represent the values of the numerous pro-life people like myself who, more often than not, have played a decisive role in putting them into office.
I am beginning to agree with those who use terms such as "Republicrats" to suggest that there isn't a very significant difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party anymore. This was made especially apparent during the 2006 gubernatorial race in Illinois.
Rod Blagojevitch had made some reprehensible decisions while in office, such as his executive order forcing pharmacists to violate their own consciences, by dispensing what they regarded as pharmaceutical abortifacients, in order to keep their jobs. (So much for "choice". Apparently, pharmacists ought not to have freedom of choice regarding whether or not their hands are stained with innocent blood.)
Nevertheless, Blagojevitch won, because his opponent, Judy Baar Topinka, and her running mate, Joe Birkett, were indistinguishable from the Democrats in terms of their positions on the issues of abortion and gay marriage.
Birkett, who had previously claimed to be pro-life, based his unprincipled alliance with Topinka on his belief that she was the only Republican who could beat Blagojevitch. I thought at the time that that was a major miscalculation on his part, and the election results would seem to bear that out.
Joe seemed oblivious to the fact that the only way to beat an incumbent politician is to offer voters a significantly better alternative and then to appeal to one's political base in order to insure that people who recognize the superiority of that alternative come out to vote. Topinka lost because she was basically Blagojevitch in a skirt, notwithstanding her specious claims that she was a Republican.
Ironically, now that Birkett's 2006 running mate has lost, Birkett is trying to regain credibility with pro-life Republicans by claiming to back certain marginally pro-life measures pertaining to parental consent. Here's what I'd say to Joe if I saw him face to face:
"Sorry, Joe, but conservative voters such as myself aren't buying it. We don't easily get amnesia. We won't forget you unprincipled alliance with Topinka in 2006 for a long, long time to come. By all means, do the right thing and vote in support of pro-life legislation. But don't expect it to do you any good in the next election. That ship has sailed. You had a chance to do the right thing when it would have counted the most, but you blew it, buddy."
What happened in Illinois was heartbreaking, but hardly unique. More often than not, the small difference which does exist between the two major political parties these days is a matter of rhetoric, not a matter of substantive action.
Which is worse? To proclaim that one is pro-abortion and then to demonstrate that that is indeed the case, or to proclaim that one is pro-life and then do nothing to change the status quo regarding legal abortion?
Say what you will about the Democrats, but at least they are honest about their pathetic and immoral indifference to the intrinsic value of human life. That doesn't make me any more likely to vote for them, but it does make me feel that I have been cheated out of the opportunity to vote for candidates who share my own priorities, not just in word but in deed.
UPDATE: It bears mentioning that when it comes to the 2008 presidential elections, there are some big differences between John McCain (who has said clearly that human life begins at conception) and Barack Obama (who not only claimed that answering such a question was "above (his) pay grade," but also opposed Illinois laws designed to prevent infanticide). For me, the choice is clear. Even though I'm not convinced that the pro-life agenda is at the top of McCain's list of priorities, it is at least on that list. Barack Obama's election would be a huge setback for the pro-life cause.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Thoughts About Internet Explorer 7
I just finished downloading version 7 of Internet Explorer 7. I've only used it for a very short period of time, but so far, I very much like what I see.
The ability to use multiple tabs in order to access multiple web pages and sites simultaneously, without the need to constantly use Alt-Tab to switch back and forth between different web pages, should be extremely useful, particularly when creating blog posts, since it will make it far easier to switch between the editing window and the actual blog page in order to insure that the changes I've made have been successfully posted to the actual blog.
With IE 6, another option when searching for particular web pages which were open in multiple windows was to locate a particular window via the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. But that was sometimes a pain in the behind, especially if there were a number of other programs running as well. This way, regardless of how many other programs are running, Internet Explorer 7 only occupies one button on the Taskbar. Nice!
I also like the new QuickTabs feature, which should be particularly helpful when two or more of the tabs start with text which is identical. (Some long text descriptions of web pages are truncated on the tabs themselves.) QuickTabs actually gives you visual representations of each of the open web pages (but only after each page has finished loading). It will be interesting to see how many web pages can be displayed by the QuickTabs screen at once.
There's also a Tab List which makes it easy to see a complete list of all open web pages, without the need to view the QuickTabs screen. And it doesn't seem to truncate text, as far as I can tell.
They've also added a new way of accessing Internet Explorer Favorites, known as the Favorites Center. I particularly like the fact that one can "pin" the Favorites Center to a particular view, folder and subfolder. If one is engaged in a complex project which requires that one return to the same folder and/or subfolder again and again, that feature ought to save a lot of time.
One neat thing is that in addition to saving individual web pages as Internet Explorer Favorites, one can now save entire Tab Groups as Favorites. That should be really useful.
Because I have a dialup connection, I sometimes find that it's necessary for me to open a second window in Internet Explorer just so that I can periodically pop over to that other window in order to click a link or request a new web page so as to keep my service provider from disconnecting me while I'm in the process of writing or editing a long blog post. The new features in IE 7 should make it easier for me to do that.
Interestingly, it is still possible to open a new iteration of Internet Explorer, by clicking Ctrl-N. When doing so, the new iteration only opens with the tab which was active at the time, not with all of the tabs which were active.
Some of the features which were previously only available via the Menu Bar are now available via other options as well. So there's less need to display the Menu Bar, which is nice because hiding the Menu Bar frees up space at the top of the screen so that one can see more of the actual web page. But one can still view the Menu Bar, if desired.
One thing that annoyed me about previous versions of Internet Explorer was that the system didn't automatically alphabetize one's Internet Explorer Favorites or the Internet Explorer Favorites folders or subfolders. One had to alphabetize each one manually by grabbing it and dragging it into the proper position. I was hoping that the new update would offer a simple button one could click in order to alphabetize all current entries, but as far as I can see, they have not done so. Oh, well. Maybe they'll offer that feature in Internet Explorer 8.
Alphabetizing all of one's Favorites might not seem like a big deal if one only has a few entries, but I have tons of entries in my Favorites folder and related subfolders. When they aren't alphabetized, it can take forever to find what one is looking for, which partially defeats the purpose of storing things as "favorites" in the first place. So I regularly go in and drag things around in order to minimize the problem by trying to alphabetize the folders and subfolders. But that's time-consuming, and my Favorites folder is never completely alphabetized.
Despite that omission, however, it seems to me that the changes they've made have greatly improved the program. Microsoft has made major strides towards making Explorer 7 more like Mozilla Firefox.
I did download Firefox, but even though I liked the tabbed interface offered by that program, I noticed that there were instances in which Internet Explorer displayed certain web pages I had created properly and Firefox did not. Internet Explorer 7 seems to have the best of both worlds. I'm not quite ready to uninstall Firefox yet, but I have a feeling that I may be doing so in the near future. If I don't uninstall it, it will only be because I need to periodically check pages I have designed and uploaded in order to see how they look to people who prefer to use Firefox.
Now here's a cool feature I just discovered. Internet Explorer now allows one to zoom in on actual web pages, just like Microsoft Word does!
In the past, changing the text size (Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger or Largest) was about the only way to deal with situations where the text was too small to be read comfortably.
The problem was that that option didn't work if the web designer has used CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to specify the actual size of the text. The Text Size feature could only scale text up or down if that text was standard HTML, not if it was CSS. It should also go without saying that the Text Size command was useless for scaling graphics up or down, which was a problem in cases where web designers had chosen to display text information, using small and hard-to-read fonts, in the form of graphics.
Now one can zoom in on the entire web page, in the following percentages: 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%, 200% or 400%. Also in custom percentages. One can zoom in or out using keyboard shortcuts, too. (Specifically, the plus and minus keys, combined the Ctrl key.) In addition to making it a lot easier to read text on certain web pages, that should also make it easier to capture graphic images in the form of screen shots, without being limited to just one size.
Of course, zooming in and/or out doesn't change the resolution of a graphic image on the page. So if you zoom in on a graphic image to an extreme degree, the image may look very pixellated, since you are effectively lowering the resolution on the screen. That would be true in virtually any program capable of displaying a raster graphics image such as a photo.
Also, zooming in often means that you need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see the entire web page, even though that scroll bar wasn't visible or necessary when viewing the web page at 100%.
Zooming in can sometimes have interesting results when that option is exercised while looking at a page with multiple frames. Portions of sections can seem to disappear! But they're there, you just have to scroll up and/or down to see them.
Microsoft has also added a number of features, such as the ability to synchronize with RSS feeds directly from Internet Explorer without the need for third party solutions. That's particularly useful when subscribing to blogs and podcasts.
There are new features designed to flag potential or known "phishing" sites and other sites which might compromise the security of one's computer.
Time will tell if I will continue to be as enthusiastic about this new browser as I currently am, but so far, things are looking good.
The ability to use multiple tabs in order to access multiple web pages and sites simultaneously, without the need to constantly use Alt-Tab to switch back and forth between different web pages, should be extremely useful, particularly when creating blog posts, since it will make it far easier to switch between the editing window and the actual blog page in order to insure that the changes I've made have been successfully posted to the actual blog.
With IE 6, another option when searching for particular web pages which were open in multiple windows was to locate a particular window via the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. But that was sometimes a pain in the behind, especially if there were a number of other programs running as well. This way, regardless of how many other programs are running, Internet Explorer 7 only occupies one button on the Taskbar. Nice!
I also like the new QuickTabs feature, which should be particularly helpful when two or more of the tabs start with text which is identical. (Some long text descriptions of web pages are truncated on the tabs themselves.) QuickTabs actually gives you visual representations of each of the open web pages (but only after each page has finished loading). It will be interesting to see how many web pages can be displayed by the QuickTabs screen at once.
There's also a Tab List which makes it easy to see a complete list of all open web pages, without the need to view the QuickTabs screen. And it doesn't seem to truncate text, as far as I can tell.
They've also added a new way of accessing Internet Explorer Favorites, known as the Favorites Center. I particularly like the fact that one can "pin" the Favorites Center to a particular view, folder and subfolder. If one is engaged in a complex project which requires that one return to the same folder and/or subfolder again and again, that feature ought to save a lot of time.
One neat thing is that in addition to saving individual web pages as Internet Explorer Favorites, one can now save entire Tab Groups as Favorites. That should be really useful.
Because I have a dialup connection, I sometimes find that it's necessary for me to open a second window in Internet Explorer just so that I can periodically pop over to that other window in order to click a link or request a new web page so as to keep my service provider from disconnecting me while I'm in the process of writing or editing a long blog post. The new features in IE 7 should make it easier for me to do that.
Interestingly, it is still possible to open a new iteration of Internet Explorer, by clicking Ctrl-N. When doing so, the new iteration only opens with the tab which was active at the time, not with all of the tabs which were active.
Some of the features which were previously only available via the Menu Bar are now available via other options as well. So there's less need to display the Menu Bar, which is nice because hiding the Menu Bar frees up space at the top of the screen so that one can see more of the actual web page. But one can still view the Menu Bar, if desired.
One thing that annoyed me about previous versions of Internet Explorer was that the system didn't automatically alphabetize one's Internet Explorer Favorites or the Internet Explorer Favorites folders or subfolders. One had to alphabetize each one manually by grabbing it and dragging it into the proper position. I was hoping that the new update would offer a simple button one could click in order to alphabetize all current entries, but as far as I can see, they have not done so. Oh, well. Maybe they'll offer that feature in Internet Explorer 8.
Alphabetizing all of one's Favorites might not seem like a big deal if one only has a few entries, but I have tons of entries in my Favorites folder and related subfolders. When they aren't alphabetized, it can take forever to find what one is looking for, which partially defeats the purpose of storing things as "favorites" in the first place. So I regularly go in and drag things around in order to minimize the problem by trying to alphabetize the folders and subfolders. But that's time-consuming, and my Favorites folder is never completely alphabetized.
Despite that omission, however, it seems to me that the changes they've made have greatly improved the program. Microsoft has made major strides towards making Explorer 7 more like Mozilla Firefox.
I did download Firefox, but even though I liked the tabbed interface offered by that program, I noticed that there were instances in which Internet Explorer displayed certain web pages I had created properly and Firefox did not. Internet Explorer 7 seems to have the best of both worlds. I'm not quite ready to uninstall Firefox yet, but I have a feeling that I may be doing so in the near future. If I don't uninstall it, it will only be because I need to periodically check pages I have designed and uploaded in order to see how they look to people who prefer to use Firefox.
Now here's a cool feature I just discovered. Internet Explorer now allows one to zoom in on actual web pages, just like Microsoft Word does!
In the past, changing the text size (Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger or Largest) was about the only way to deal with situations where the text was too small to be read comfortably.
The problem was that that option didn't work if the web designer has used CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to specify the actual size of the text. The Text Size feature could only scale text up or down if that text was standard HTML, not if it was CSS. It should also go without saying that the Text Size command was useless for scaling graphics up or down, which was a problem in cases where web designers had chosen to display text information, using small and hard-to-read fonts, in the form of graphics.
Now one can zoom in on the entire web page, in the following percentages: 50%, 75%, 100%, 125%, 150%, 200% or 400%. Also in custom percentages. One can zoom in or out using keyboard shortcuts, too. (Specifically, the plus and minus keys, combined the Ctrl key.) In addition to making it a lot easier to read text on certain web pages, that should also make it easier to capture graphic images in the form of screen shots, without being limited to just one size.
Of course, zooming in and/or out doesn't change the resolution of a graphic image on the page. So if you zoom in on a graphic image to an extreme degree, the image may look very pixellated, since you are effectively lowering the resolution on the screen. That would be true in virtually any program capable of displaying a raster graphics image such as a photo.
Also, zooming in often means that you need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see the entire web page, even though that scroll bar wasn't visible or necessary when viewing the web page at 100%.
Zooming in can sometimes have interesting results when that option is exercised while looking at a page with multiple frames. Portions of sections can seem to disappear! But they're there, you just have to scroll up and/or down to see them.
Microsoft has also added a number of features, such as the ability to synchronize with RSS feeds directly from Internet Explorer without the need for third party solutions. That's particularly useful when subscribing to blogs and podcasts.
There are new features designed to flag potential or known "phishing" sites and other sites which might compromise the security of one's computer.
Time will tell if I will continue to be as enthusiastic about this new browser as I currently am, but so far, things are looking good.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
The Tomb
Not long ago, I wrote a number of poems, most of which pertained to my faith in Christ in some way. I thought I would share another one of those poems with you. This particular poem might seem more appropriate for Easter than for the Christmas season, but if there had been no Easter, Christmas would have no significance.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Tomb
© Mark W. Pettigrew
“Why are you crying?”
they said to the woman.
“He is not here any longer.”
“What do you mean?”
she replied with a start,
wishing her faith could be stronger.
Turning, she saw Him,
and soon realized
she beheld Jesus, her Master.
When it dawned on her
that Jesus had risen, her
heart beat faster and faster.
Oh, how magnificent,
oh, how divine!
Mary knew joy beyond measure.
Quickly, she ran to tell
all the disciples
of her amazing new treasure.
they said to the woman.
“He is not here any longer.”
“What do you mean?”
she replied with a start,
wishing her faith could be stronger.
Turning, she saw Him,
and soon realized
she beheld Jesus, her Master.
When it dawned on her
that Jesus had risen, her
heart beat faster and faster.
Oh, how magnificent,
oh, how divine!
Mary knew joy beyond measure.
Quickly, she ran to tell
all the disciples
of her amazing new treasure.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Mirror
Not long ago, I wrote a number of poems, most of which pertained to my faith in Christ in some way. I thought I would share one of those poems with you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Mirror
© Mark W. Pettigrew
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
What do you see in your face?
Do you see charity, love and compassion?
Do you see mercy and grace?
Is there the Spirit of God in your visage?
Is there the passion for truth?
Do you still hurt for the ones who are hurting?
Have you the faith of your youth?
Time takes a toll on the face of a person.
That’s something you can’t control.
Sadly, some people let time do its damage
deep in the innermost soul.
If you see envy and malice and hate,
If you see things you abhor.
Come back to Jesus, it isn’t too late.
He will your spirit restore.
What do you see in your face?
Do you see charity, love and compassion?
Do you see mercy and grace?
Is there the Spirit of God in your visage?
Is there the passion for truth?
Do you still hurt for the ones who are hurting?
Have you the faith of your youth?
Time takes a toll on the face of a person.
That’s something you can’t control.
Sadly, some people let time do its damage
deep in the innermost soul.
If you see envy and malice and hate,
If you see things you abhor.
Come back to Jesus, it isn’t too late.
He will your spirit restore.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday, November 24, 2006
I Hear The Whistle Blowing
Being stuck in a job where one is belittled and threatened with job loss on a regular basis is a really unpleasant experience. It's like being tied to the train tracks in the path of an oncoming train. One can hear that whistle blowing as the train gets nearer and nearer, but one has no ability to stop the train or avoid the collision. All one can do is hope that the train is further away than it sounds.
As comparisons go, I think that's a pretty good comparison. But it isn't really fully adequate.
When being hit by a real train, it's reasonable to suppose that one's moment of actual pain would be mercifully brief, provided that it was a direct hit. One might suppose that death would be instant, and that one wouldn't be alive long enough to really experience any pain. It seems reasonable to assume that the anticipation and the fear would be the worst part of the experience.
With a job loss, there is nothing particularly merciful or brief about it. Instead of bringing relief, the actual moment in which one is told that one has been fired merely initiates a long process in which one repeatedly does one's best to smile and act as optimistic as possible during job interviews, even though one is dying inside. It doesn't help that one is expected to refrain from criticizing one's former employers, even in situations where one was often treated with little or no consideration and respect.
It gets harder to stay optimistic the longer the job search process takes. And the older one gets, the longer the job search process seems to take. During that time, funds shrink (even if one is fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment insurance), and one's self esteem and hope for the future diminish with every incident in which one has to plead for one's landlord to be patient and to abstain from evicting one from one's home long enough for one to secure another job and get back on one's feet again.
During times of unemployment, one basically is not allowed to have a real life. Every moment spent in some endeavor other than looking for work is filled with guilt. That includes time spent sleeping. Yet, sleep offers the only relief from the constant awareness of one's predicament. With no job to go to, it's very hard to get motivated to make do with five or six hours of sleep when one's body really needs eight hours or more.
Somehow, it seems that one always gets a job at the end of the process, but the road leading to that event is often long, twisted and rocky. What makes it worse is that one is often forced at the end of the road to take yet another mindnumbingly boring job which is not much better (if any) from one's previous job.
How does one get into such a position? It's easy. No dastardly villain is necessary. All it takes is to be poor and powerless, lacking adequate resources with which to pursue the type of job for which one is really suited. Which, in my cases, is no job at all. For most of my life, I have tried to fit into a variety of job situations, but in most of those jobs, to a greater or lesser degree, I have felt like the proverbial square peg in a round hole.
I am not by any means averse to hard work. But what I long for is a "job" in which the work, no matter how hard, is so enjoyable that it doesn't really feel like work. I know that I have many viable, marketable skills. There are people in this world who are able to support themselves doing things they love. There are people who say hello to the boss every morning when they look into the mirror. Why can't I be one of those people?
Sometimes, talent can be a blessing. Sometimes, though, it can feel like a curse. It would be easy in some ways for me to resign myself to mind numbing work where job security was a distant illusion and the pay was just barely enough to pay the bills, if I had no other conceivable options, and if I didn't know that I had abundant untapped potential. But that's not the case. I long to work in a field which makes the most of my abilities as a musician, writer, artist, photographer and more. I am daily working on personal goals with that objective in mind. But every time I seem to make some progress, it seems that I suffer a financial setback which causes me to lose ground. To say that it's frustrating is an extreme understatement.
I was once accused by a pastor of being "lazy". This, despite the fact that I had only been unemployed (after being fired for failing to meet a sales quota) for a very short time.
Prior to that, the aforementioned pastor knew good and well that I'd been working 12 hours a day at a job that barely paid minimum wage. I'd spent another 4 hours a day commuting. (It was a 2 hour bus ride to and from work.) All told, I'd been spending 16 hours a day either working or riding to and from work. How that qualified as "lazy" was a mystery to me. Apparently, this particular pastor wasn't satisfied that I was spending virtually all of my waking hours in work related activities. He thought I ought to be giving up my sleep as well.
In situations like that, one begins to feel like an orange being squeezed by a huge vise, long after all of the juice is all gone.
But don't dare complain in a situation like that. Oh, no! You'll likely be accused of "whining" by people (including some so-called Christian leaders) whose personal dictionaries do not include words like "compassion" and "empathy". They'll accuse you of holding a "pity party". They'll let you know that they have no interest in your problems or your life. And then they'll expect you to joyfully put money in their collection plates. Just don't count on getting any of it back during times of crisis.
Of course, there will be exceptions. You will occasionally get lucky, or blessed, and find someone who actually practices what he or she preaches. Someone who knows that when a person is down and out, that person needs a helping hand, not a kick in the teeth. But that will be the exception, not the rule. Or at least, it has been for me.
Getting older stinks in some ways. The hair thins and then disappears. The teeth and other parts of the body begin to show their age, especially if one cannot afford regular medical or dental care. Stairs that used to be easy to climb become difficult to climb. The names of old friends increasingly show up in the obituaries.
If one has little or nothing in the form of a financial "nest egg", as is often the case when one is living from one paycheck to the next, then growing old can also be cause for fear. What if the "inevitable" job at the end of the job search process stops being so inevitable? What if one's landlord runs out of patience altogether? What if no one wants to hire one because one has accrued so many bad experiences that it's harder to get a good job reference than it is to pull the teeth of a saltwater crocodile? For these and other reasons, growing old leaves a lot to be desired.
But old age can also be a blessing, if one believes that an eternity in heaven awaits those who continue to do their best to serve and obey God in spite of this massive pile of dung known as life on earth.
Every passing day brings a person of faith one step closer to the arrival of another kind of train. Curtis Mayfield once sang the following song:
People get ready, there's a train a-comin'.
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board.
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.
I once attended a philosophy discussion group at a local secular bookstore. I may have been the only Christian in attendance. Each time they met, they would write down interesting questions they wanted to discuss. Then those questions would be read aloud, and the group would vote for the topic they wished to discuss. At the meeting I attended, someone asked, "Will science ever discover a cure for death? Would that be a desirable thing?"
What a question! That's like asking a person sentenced to prison for life whether or not that person would like to stay in that prison forever. When it was my turn to speak, I said that an eternity here on earth would be a curse, not a blessing, unless solutions could be found to all of the other problems which make life on earth such a miserable experience at times. And I did not believe that such a thing was possible, because we lived in a fallen world which was irreparably tainted with selfishness and sin.
Yes, life here on earth can sometimes be enjoyable, but even those who are relatively blessed in this life are constantly being reminded of just how far this life falls short of what it was meant to be. In this world, there are the "haves" and the "have nots". If you're a "have not", you have numerous problems to deal with, and many of those problems (although not all by any means) are related to financial needs. But being a "have" isn't necessarily much better. If you're a "have", you can't pick up a newspaper or turn on the television news without being reminded that others are suffering. How can you respond to such knowledge? You can either suffer with and for people who suffer, or you can ignore their pleas for help until your soul becomes dead and you become a hollow wraith instead of a man or a woman.
In terms of real pleasure, both of those alternatives leave a lot to be desired. Most people minimize the discomfort by trying to find a balance between those two extremes, but that isn't easy. It shouldn't be necssary. In heaven, it won't be necessary.
In the short term, I hear a train whistle. It tells me that I may not be at my current job much longer. It tells me that leaving that job may be an involuntary experience on my part. I'm not looking forward to the arrival of that train. I hope that I'm mistaken about the inevitability of its arrival.
But that other train? That's a different story. I'm waiting for a train which is bound for glory. The sound of that train whistle is sweet music in my ears. All of the hypocritical preachers and uncompassionate bosses in the world cannot diminish my faith in the Lord who commands that train. I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep my soul until that day.
As comparisons go, I think that's a pretty good comparison. But it isn't really fully adequate.
When being hit by a real train, it's reasonable to suppose that one's moment of actual pain would be mercifully brief, provided that it was a direct hit. One might suppose that death would be instant, and that one wouldn't be alive long enough to really experience any pain. It seems reasonable to assume that the anticipation and the fear would be the worst part of the experience.
With a job loss, there is nothing particularly merciful or brief about it. Instead of bringing relief, the actual moment in which one is told that one has been fired merely initiates a long process in which one repeatedly does one's best to smile and act as optimistic as possible during job interviews, even though one is dying inside. It doesn't help that one is expected to refrain from criticizing one's former employers, even in situations where one was often treated with little or no consideration and respect.
It gets harder to stay optimistic the longer the job search process takes. And the older one gets, the longer the job search process seems to take. During that time, funds shrink (even if one is fortunate enough to qualify for unemployment insurance), and one's self esteem and hope for the future diminish with every incident in which one has to plead for one's landlord to be patient and to abstain from evicting one from one's home long enough for one to secure another job and get back on one's feet again.
During times of unemployment, one basically is not allowed to have a real life. Every moment spent in some endeavor other than looking for work is filled with guilt. That includes time spent sleeping. Yet, sleep offers the only relief from the constant awareness of one's predicament. With no job to go to, it's very hard to get motivated to make do with five or six hours of sleep when one's body really needs eight hours or more.
Somehow, it seems that one always gets a job at the end of the process, but the road leading to that event is often long, twisted and rocky. What makes it worse is that one is often forced at the end of the road to take yet another mindnumbingly boring job which is not much better (if any) from one's previous job.
How does one get into such a position? It's easy. No dastardly villain is necessary. All it takes is to be poor and powerless, lacking adequate resources with which to pursue the type of job for which one is really suited. Which, in my cases, is no job at all. For most of my life, I have tried to fit into a variety of job situations, but in most of those jobs, to a greater or lesser degree, I have felt like the proverbial square peg in a round hole.
I am not by any means averse to hard work. But what I long for is a "job" in which the work, no matter how hard, is so enjoyable that it doesn't really feel like work. I know that I have many viable, marketable skills. There are people in this world who are able to support themselves doing things they love. There are people who say hello to the boss every morning when they look into the mirror. Why can't I be one of those people?
Sometimes, talent can be a blessing. Sometimes, though, it can feel like a curse. It would be easy in some ways for me to resign myself to mind numbing work where job security was a distant illusion and the pay was just barely enough to pay the bills, if I had no other conceivable options, and if I didn't know that I had abundant untapped potential. But that's not the case. I long to work in a field which makes the most of my abilities as a musician, writer, artist, photographer and more. I am daily working on personal goals with that objective in mind. But every time I seem to make some progress, it seems that I suffer a financial setback which causes me to lose ground. To say that it's frustrating is an extreme understatement.
I was once accused by a pastor of being "lazy". This, despite the fact that I had only been unemployed (after being fired for failing to meet a sales quota) for a very short time.
Prior to that, the aforementioned pastor knew good and well that I'd been working 12 hours a day at a job that barely paid minimum wage. I'd spent another 4 hours a day commuting. (It was a 2 hour bus ride to and from work.) All told, I'd been spending 16 hours a day either working or riding to and from work. How that qualified as "lazy" was a mystery to me. Apparently, this particular pastor wasn't satisfied that I was spending virtually all of my waking hours in work related activities. He thought I ought to be giving up my sleep as well.
In situations like that, one begins to feel like an orange being squeezed by a huge vise, long after all of the juice is all gone.
But don't dare complain in a situation like that. Oh, no! You'll likely be accused of "whining" by people (including some so-called Christian leaders) whose personal dictionaries do not include words like "compassion" and "empathy". They'll accuse you of holding a "pity party". They'll let you know that they have no interest in your problems or your life. And then they'll expect you to joyfully put money in their collection plates. Just don't count on getting any of it back during times of crisis.
Of course, there will be exceptions. You will occasionally get lucky, or blessed, and find someone who actually practices what he or she preaches. Someone who knows that when a person is down and out, that person needs a helping hand, not a kick in the teeth. But that will be the exception, not the rule. Or at least, it has been for me.
Getting older stinks in some ways. The hair thins and then disappears. The teeth and other parts of the body begin to show their age, especially if one cannot afford regular medical or dental care. Stairs that used to be easy to climb become difficult to climb. The names of old friends increasingly show up in the obituaries.
If one has little or nothing in the form of a financial "nest egg", as is often the case when one is living from one paycheck to the next, then growing old can also be cause for fear. What if the "inevitable" job at the end of the job search process stops being so inevitable? What if one's landlord runs out of patience altogether? What if no one wants to hire one because one has accrued so many bad experiences that it's harder to get a good job reference than it is to pull the teeth of a saltwater crocodile? For these and other reasons, growing old leaves a lot to be desired.
But old age can also be a blessing, if one believes that an eternity in heaven awaits those who continue to do their best to serve and obey God in spite of this massive pile of dung known as life on earth.
Every passing day brings a person of faith one step closer to the arrival of another kind of train. Curtis Mayfield once sang the following song:
People get ready, there's a train a-comin'.
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board.
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.
I once attended a philosophy discussion group at a local secular bookstore. I may have been the only Christian in attendance. Each time they met, they would write down interesting questions they wanted to discuss. Then those questions would be read aloud, and the group would vote for the topic they wished to discuss. At the meeting I attended, someone asked, "Will science ever discover a cure for death? Would that be a desirable thing?"
What a question! That's like asking a person sentenced to prison for life whether or not that person would like to stay in that prison forever. When it was my turn to speak, I said that an eternity here on earth would be a curse, not a blessing, unless solutions could be found to all of the other problems which make life on earth such a miserable experience at times. And I did not believe that such a thing was possible, because we lived in a fallen world which was irreparably tainted with selfishness and sin.
Yes, life here on earth can sometimes be enjoyable, but even those who are relatively blessed in this life are constantly being reminded of just how far this life falls short of what it was meant to be. In this world, there are the "haves" and the "have nots". If you're a "have not", you have numerous problems to deal with, and many of those problems (although not all by any means) are related to financial needs. But being a "have" isn't necessarily much better. If you're a "have", you can't pick up a newspaper or turn on the television news without being reminded that others are suffering. How can you respond to such knowledge? You can either suffer with and for people who suffer, or you can ignore their pleas for help until your soul becomes dead and you become a hollow wraith instead of a man or a woman.
In terms of real pleasure, both of those alternatives leave a lot to be desired. Most people minimize the discomfort by trying to find a balance between those two extremes, but that isn't easy. It shouldn't be necssary. In heaven, it won't be necessary.
In the short term, I hear a train whistle. It tells me that I may not be at my current job much longer. It tells me that leaving that job may be an involuntary experience on my part. I'm not looking forward to the arrival of that train. I hope that I'm mistaken about the inevitability of its arrival.
But that other train? That's a different story. I'm waiting for a train which is bound for glory. The sound of that train whistle is sweet music in my ears. All of the hypocritical preachers and uncompassionate bosses in the world cannot diminish my faith in the Lord who commands that train. I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep my soul until that day.
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