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Monday Motivator

I had a wonderful weekend with a bunch of Canadians. See, I live in wild, wonderful West Virginia, but I’m from Ontario. I was blessed to have my mom, her sister and brother-in-law, and her parents here for a few days. It wasn’t long enough, but it was a real blessing.

Having family together, drinking entirely too much coffee (or tea, or pepsi), sitting around having long talks, these are things that make life good. It’s also fun to watch as my family (my wife and child) integrate with my family (extended), and as that whole group further integrates with my wife’s family. It’s just neat.

The Lord has certainly blessed me through my family. And I know that’s not the case for everyone. So this morning, I’m counting my blessings.

Cross checks and elbows

And tripping, oh my! I’ve had the chance now to watch several preseason hockey games, and I’m about as excited as I can get. My Maple Leafs look better and better, Rebecca’s Penguins still look phenomenal, and Philadelphia doesn’t look all that great. What more could I ask for?

Hockey is a funny game. Occasionally, especially here in the south, I get asked how I can possibly enjoy a game with that much violence. It’s a legitimate question, and I won’t reply with the trite “It’s all part of the game” that I hear the broadcasters defend it with.

Instead, I’ll say, I don’t watch it for that. I’m into hockey for the talent it displays, the speed, the passing, the unbelievable acrobatics of the goaltenders, and the even more unbelievable acrobatics of Sidney Crosby putting it past the goaltenders (Side question: is there a starting goaltender in the NHL that Sid hasn’t scored on at this point?). It is a great game. I see the physical violence (by which I refer to things like cross checks, elbows, tripping, holding… I see body checks as not violence, but strategy) as an unfortunate part of a game that is otherwise the best sport to watch.

As far as body checks go, it’s kind of like tackling in football… the point isn’t the hit, the point is stopping the progress of the opposing player. A well-timed body check frees up the puck, starts an odd-man rush the other way, and contributes to a goal. It’s strategy.

So, there you have it, my take on violence in hockey. By the way, get rid of the little dirty stuff (cross checks, holding, tripping), and I bet you’ll find that the fighting goes right with it, by and large. It just wouldn’t be necessary.

Monday Motivator

I have a son. He is 17 months old. I did not know this until recently, but it turns out that this is a really fun time in the life of a little boy. Everything he gets to do is a learning experience — even spilling one hundred cheerios on the floor (and saying “Cheroos” while doing it). He’s developing concepts, and not always developing them right. It’s a lot of fun, for example, to watch him get to the end of the board book, where they have two boards glued together for the back cover. He insists that its broken. How does he express this? By putting his hands to his head to indicate, from a song his mom taught him, “Broke his head.”  Yep… that’s our concept of broken.

Anyway, getting to observe this little boy (currently on the floor, pointing at the  spot on his finger that he managed to cut on something, and saying “ow!”) is an absolutely wonderful experience. Life changing. Perspective granting. He makes Mondays well worth the effort.

Hokey Hockey Drama

It’s been quite the off season in hockey. Especially if you live in Phoenix, Arizona. See, there’s a hockey team in Phoenix (the coyotes). Go figure… a hockey team in a desert. It hasn’t be going so hot for the coyotes lately. Low attendance, a terrible team… pretty much the only thing they’ve got going for them is their coach, Wayne Gretzky. The Wayne Gretzky. But, Gretz hasn’t been doing so hot either.

So, after the season ended, the owner in Phoenix declared bankruptcy. Real quick like, this guy called Jim Balsillie makes a bid for the team that is a whole huge chunk of change more than anyone would pay in their right mind.

Why? Oh, this guy has history with the NHL. He wants to move an existing NHL team to Hamilton, Ontario. That’d be a good business move, but part of the history is that the NHL wants nothing to do with Balsillie.

Would you believe that this thing is still ongoing? Yep… sure is. There’s a judge trying to figure out of Balsillie can buy the team in spite of the NHL’s hatred for him.

Drama, drama, drama. To make matters worse, Coach Gretz didn’t show up to start training camp.

Oy vey. Can’t wait for either the Pens or the Leafs to meet up with the folks from Phoenix. Those guys will be so discouraged by all the mess, they might not even tie their skates.

A Christian Response to Ayn Rand

I recently finished Atlas Shrugged. I didn’t even mean to bring it home, I went to the library looking for an atlas, and the book looked the right size. I kid, I kid.

But it is a long book. Seriously.

It’s a book with a purpose though… Ayn Rand is putting together a defense or maybe an explanation.of her philosophy in fictional form.

Let me get the easy part out of the way. I think she’s wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong in some pretty important ways.

But, where she’s right, she has some important things to say to the world we live in today. Where’s she right?

Well… first, there are things that are true absolutely. It was funny to read her “Bad guys” who insisted that there were no absolutes. They come off as totally ridiculous (Because they are)… and yet, I know that there are people in our world who hold the same views and are taken quite seriously.

Second, for a man to know anything, he must use reason. He must think for himself. The apathy that leads people to simply adopt the views of others as their own is as problematic in the real world as it is in her book.

Third, she’s right that a man’s actions ought to be governed by what makes him happy.

For essentially the last 200 pages of Atlas Shrugged, I thought…. hmm, so close, but so far away. As the characters in the book remind each other, if something doesn’t seem to add up, you have to check your premises. I wanted to shout, “Check your premises” when a main character railed against spirituality because God was inherently unknowable and therefore irrational and dangerous.

While I concur that God is unknowable (and dangerous), there’s a fatal flaw in their assumption. They presume that because God is unknowable (that is, we cannot know Him perfectly because He is eternal and we are finite), we cannot know what He’d have of us.

This, then, is the Christian response: We agree that man needs a rational, absolute basis to his morality. We also agree that man should be governed by that which makes him happiest.

However, God has revealed Himself to man. In revealing Himself to man, God also gave man the information needed to understand what God would have of him. And, the Christian affirms that man ought to be governed by happiness… but not a short-term, earth-oriented happiness. The first answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism reads “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.”

If Ayn Rand or her characters were standing here today, I’d tell them how right they were and how wrong they were. I’d hope that they’d see the light. And even if they didn’t immediately, I’d probably be encouraged by them, because their worldview, at the very least, hinges on rationality. That means that at least we’re starting from the same place and we might get there eventually.

Monday Motivator

I’m rejuvenated… it’s a Monday morning and I’m psyched. Why am I psyched? Well, I guess I’m experiencing how much doing a job you love instead of a job you like can improve the quality of your days. I had worked in banking. I hope to write a novel about it one day. Banking wasn’t the worst career that you could pick. In fact, I worked in the best individual bank branch in West Virginia. I loved the people I worked with.

But, while I do possess a somewhat analytical mind, number crunching is not primarily my idea of a fun time. Dealing with customers who feel like they’ve been robbed, even less so. One day I’d like to do a blog post about that. We’ll see. But I did my best at that job, and I feel like I did well.

Anyway, now, I work for BelieversPress (www.believerspress.com), and I have to tell you, it’s a joy. It’s challenging, it’s rewarding, it’s all the things you hope a job will be. And it’s all motivated by a sincere desire to serve the customer best… not the best that we can, but best.

That’s motivating. Doing my job and enjoying it at the same time… that’s something I can wake up on Monday for!

I won’t even mention that preseason hockey starts tonight. Shoot, I just mentioned it, didn’t I?

Being the nit-picker

This was going to be a picture of lice… but lice pictures are really gross. After 30 seconds looking at pictures of lice, my head started to itch and I needed something to redeem my mind, so you’re getting a hummingbird taking a little drink. I like to think that if there were a massive lice outbreak, the hummingbirds would come and save us by picking the lice off our heads. Because again, lice are pretty gross.

So, no, not actual nit-picking. Just the generic type that we tend to mean when we say the term. I have a terrible, evil tendency to tear apart the way people I love say things. It’s not very nice; it’s actually kind of smart-alecky. But, it also makes for good practice when it comes to editorial work… I guess the question is, how do I split the difference?

When is it okay for someone to correct an error? When should they keep their mouths shut?

I tend to think in namby-pamby terms about things like this… “Oh, it’s okay when your intention is right.” But, in reality, isn’t it when the correction will serve the person better than letting the error stand? My intention has to do with my attitude, my sinful nature… but the benefit of the correction versus the harm of the error is pretty much the extent of the transaction for the correctee.

Does that make sense, or does it sound like Petty Self-Justification 101?

An Interview with Donald Miller

Michael Hyatt has posted three videos he recorded interviewing Donald Miller. Now, I know that Mr. Miller is a somewhat-controversial character, particularly among us conservatives. My take on it is that, while he and I may not agree on everything — and even what we’d disagree on is probably hard to nail down — there are beneficial things to be found in his work. Also, he’s a brilliant writer. I’ve consistently thoroughly enjoyed reading his work.

He’s also interesting to listen to. I’d encourage you to listen to him and Michael talk. It was beneficial to me as a writer to observe how he sees story in  real life.

In honor of Labour Day

The guys who did this deserve a day off… I’m thinking I do too… I’ll be back tomorrow!