I haven’t voted yet. I like the idea of an election day, so I’ll wait until Tuesday. And I like the idea of a secret ballot, so I’m not going to tell you how I am going to vote. What’s more, I have no idea why County Surveyor is a partisan office in the county where we live, and I don’t know if we need to figure out how to make surveying great again or if it’s just time to turn the page on surveyors past.

On Sunday I am filling the pulpit for a friend who is pastor of a church across the state line in Ohio. Yes, two days before the election. I’m planning on mentioning the election in my sermon – the principle of pertinent preaching, but I won’t tell the congregation how to vote. In fact, in their county the County Engineer is a partisan office, and I know nothing about making engineering great again.

I won’t say much about the election coming up on Tuesday, but I will say something about “day after” Wednesday.

I have been asked to preach from Galatians 5:16-26, which includes the image of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. In the passage, the Apostle Paul contrasts the fruit of the Spirit with the “works of the flesh.” Among the works of the flesh are enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.

I am afraid that if the “making surveying or engineering great again” crowd loses to the “turn the page” crowd – or vice versa – we may see more enmity, strife, and fits of anger than peace, patience, and kindness.

The passage from Galatians speaks of “walking in step” with the Spirit.

You’ll have to come to Ohio if you want to hear the sermon, but Ohio or not, all of us might want to consider how best to walk in step with the Spirit on Wednesday morning and the days after.

Some of the partisans among us argue that we can’t afford peace, patience, and kindness with those who favor the wrong kind of county surveying. Some have said that enmity, strife, and fits of anger are appropriate, even faithful, responses to the election of a county engineer we don’t like.

In Romans 8:39 Paul reminds us that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not even a sinister county surveyor or an evil county engineer.

We took one of our cars in for an oil change and tire rotation the other day. Oil changed, tires rotated, they called to tell us the car was ready. Good news, no other problems. When we arrived at the dealership to retrieve the car, we had to wait at the service desk for a few minutes while our service rep was finishing up a phone call with another customer. I didn’t want to eavesdrop and I am no mechanic, but it was pretty clear that this was not a good news phone call. That engine chugging and the smoke out the exhaust had to do with shot piston rings and a ring job was going to be at least $3,600.

As I listened in on the bad news call, I was impressed with how well and how calmly the service rep was dealing with that poor motorist at the other end of the line who, as best I could tell, was not particularly calm or taking the news very well.  Just change the spark plugs?  No. Covered by a warranty?  No. New engine? New car? The ring job would be cheaper.

“Those calls are never fun,” the service tech told us after he finished the conversation with the customer who had just received the bad news. Continue reading →

This time of year, my morning run begins under the cover of a star-filled sky and ends as the sun pokes its head above the eastern horizon. In deference to the diminished visibility in the neighborhood, it’s the time of year to don my light vest – along with a long sleeve shirt and gloves, and those thermal compression pants (we had our first freeze warning earlier this week).

Back to the light vest. The sole purpose of the vest I wear is to be seen. The vest offers little by way of illumination on the path before me, and, besides, starlight, streetlights, and other ambient light provides enough to see what’s ahead. Mostly I want to be seen by our bleary-eyed neighbors as they back out of their driveways and head to work, often disregarding the speed limit and stop signs.

It’s good to be seen on these dark fall mornings. Continue reading →

One of the texts (and teachers) for a senior seminar on phenomenology

I must admit, it was not typical clickbait, the headline that caught my attention: Right-Hegel Meets Left-Hegel: The misreading of Hegel that Alexandre Kojève shared with Leo Strauss. But click I did; there was, after all,  51 years of guilt to assuage.

During the final term of my undergraduate years, spring of 1973, I enrolled in a senior seminar having to do with phenomenology. (The discipline of phenomenology may be defined initially as the study of structures of experience, or consciousness. – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) If I remember correctly, I was invited to register for the class by one of the professors and was flattered by the invitation. There were probably a dozen students in the class and three or four full professors teaching it. Heady stuff. I wrote my final paper on Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and did well enough.

I have felt guilty about the decent grade ever since.

One of the professor’s books, The Journeying Self, was a primary text for the seminar, and I didn’t understand a word of it. I felt like my journeying fifth-grade self who did not understand the logic, the method, or the purpose of long division. But unlike my fifth-grade teacher who caught on to my confusion early, my PhD professors seemed not to notice how lost I was. They just kept on lecturing, and I just kept on not getting it. Continue reading →

Vi’s House (l) and Mark’s Boat (r)

I was excited when I came across an article on a site called PsyPost, which promises to report “the latest psychology and neuroscience discoveries.”  The report was titled “People Who Pledge 10% of Their Income to Charity are More Morally Expansive and Open-Minded.” I thought I knew exactly who they were talking about.  I have met many of these morally expansive people over the years.  They teach Sunday school and sing in the choir, they volunteer at the food bank and tutor kids in need of some extra help.  They live in the suburbs and the inner city, in Guatemala, Brazil, and Rwanda. Yes, I knew exactly who they had in mind when they wrote about “these extraordinary altruists, who often make significant personal sacrifices to help others, challenge traditional evolutionary theories of altruism, which suggest that helping behaviors are motivated by potential future benefits or kin relationships.”

But it turns out that the article was about a group of people inspired by Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ted Turner.  Yes, those “extraordinary altruists” who give away 10%, sometimes 90%, of their fortune but still have enough left to gift themselves with a $300 million yacht for their 40^th birthday.  So that’s what a significant personal sacrifice looks like. Continue reading →