I notice I've published a hundred posts here, so this one's for and about generations. You have probably heard that we've discovered a living first cousin of mine on my dad's side, my dad's nephew, his brother Jesse's youngest son, Robert. He lives with his wife, Nancy, in Wisconsin, and we hope to drop in and meet him this summer on our trip north. And he has researched and written a wonderful history of the paternal side of the family, and sent us a copy. I hope to get another for each of you to hang onto for that time when people start to wonder where they came from--no, not that way, the geneology way--if they live long enough.
In Cousin Bob's book he talks a lot about your great-grandfather, John Yoder Kauffman, who lived with him in Ann Arbor, Michigan till his passing at age 89 in 1935. Reading about what this man did is astonishing. Son of an Amish-Mennonite minister, he raised his family in a log cabin near Bellefontaine, Ohio on their farm. They had five sons and two daughters from 1880 to 1893. The older children were born in that log cabin, but the younger ones were born in a three-story big farmhouse he built nearby with his own hands.
Together they worked hard and farmed the land. John Yoder and Ida Christine managed to put every one of their children through college. Then they fanned out, some to missionary work and preaching, some to teaching and education, some to engineering, medicine, forestry and other fields. Some, however, stayed and helped with the farm.
But John Yoder wasn't content with just farming after the family was raised. Eventually he sold the farm and started a metal products manufacturing plant in Bellefontaine, making wheels and rims for Detroit carmakers where he moved. Some of the sons helped him till he retired and moved to Ann Arbor with Cousin Bob in his final years. One day in May of 1935 , at age 89, your great-grandfather picked up his golf clubs and walked two miles across the university city to a municipal golf course and played nine holes. On his way back he stopped for ice cream, Bob writes, and by the time he got home he was finally tired. Deep-down tired. He told them that night in bed, "I am very tired. I don't think I will make it through the night." And that night your great-grandfather John Yoder Kauffman died in his sleep.
The things that man did, considering the times that he did those things is, I think, amazing. Reading about my grandfather's enterprising, God-fearing life, progenation of more than twice the number of children your mother and I raised (and we thought we had our hands full with only three!), no special benefit of education or training himself beyond what he learned from his father and from experience, it made me feel like a real slaggard myself, despite my humble achievements. Kind of makes you realize what's maybe possible in one life, doesn't it. And Grandfather Kauffman is just one of many in Cousin Bob's book whose lives, character, and achievements we can be justly proud of.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
O Ye of Little Faith
The discovery of ancient "Holy Family" ossuaries in Jerusalem tombs recently has unleashed the predictable "told 'ya so" from the humanist atheists, and tonight's ABC News had them parading around Washington and calling for the end of all religion and a new age of reason.
The world's religions, they said, have in their fanatic fighting against each other, caused the fracturing of the world, pitting Jews against Muslims, Catholics against Protestants, and Hindu against Buddhist. All human misery would vanish if only men would embrace modern knowledge and science, use their own human reason, and eschew ancient religious "superstitions."
What these rationalists may be forgetting is that such a world as they are promoting was tried, before, and it didn't work very well. It was called the Age of Reason, and ironically came to fullness at the time of the founding of America, at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
The Christian Church was at its lowest ebb of influence since its formation. In France, following the French Revolution, Napoleon, having been elected by plebiscite, seized Notre Dame Cathedral from the Church, threatened clergy with torture and death, and rededicated the famous structure to "the Goddess of Reason." He then forced the Pope to crown him within its walls, which he had ordered redecorated as a Roman temple with round arches rather than the pointed vaults of the Gothic age, Emperor of the French Empire (modeled after ancient Rome). He built the Arc de Triomph atop the Etoile and the Vendome Column on the site that had recently guillotined nearly the entire French aristocracy in the Reign of Terror, forced the citizens of the new Age of Reason to wear Roman togas and refurnish their homes with torchiere lamps and chaise lounges as had the Romans, and enjoy the fruits of liberte, egalite, and fraternite, the same ideals the French had supported in our own revolution a decade or so earlier.
When things didn't work, he reverted to type, invaded most of the rest of Europe, and caused quite a ruckus until stopped, finally, at Waterloo by sea and Moscow by land. So much for the "Age of Reason."
But most Americans today believe, mistakenly, that America was founded by Christians persecuted in Europe and driven to the New World by religious intolerance. The pilgrims of Plymouth and Jamestown colonies came for many reasons, but they weren't necessarily Christians, and some century and a half later, when the signers of the Declaration of Independence met in 1776, after the fullness of the Enlightenment had produced some of the finest thought since the Classical philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had argued by dialectic in the Greek Academy and Lyceum, there was hardly a Christian to be found among them. As were most men of the Enlightenment, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Monroe and others were Deists, not Christians. They placed their faith in reason, not religion. And they had the wisdom to keep religion separate from matters of the state.
Notice I did not say keep religion out of the social order, but separate from matters of government. Freedom of the faith and practice of one's religion was, in fact, guaranteed by the Constitution by these same founding fathers, these Deists. And one must ask why.
I believe that those men of reason, unlike Napoleon, must have recognized that religion is based not upon physical realities but upon the reality of the spiritual that infuses with meaning the physical existence we are so much more aware of, that spirit is the essential force that has inspired man since the dawn of time to struggle, to persevere, to tolerate, to love, to forgive, to endure, to continue forward against a flood of scorn and doubt by others, and ultimately to triumph over a purely evidentiary physical environment. And from religion, if we are extremely fortunate, we might even learn to love others we might otherwise hate. There is nothing in reason to account for that. Love our enemies? Preposterous! Do good to those that seek to harm me? Ridiculous!
The tomb discoveries mean much to those who have no belief in spirit, for it proves to them, logically, that the Resurrection never happened. There are the bones, they say. Jesus lived, married Mary Magdalene, had children, died, and here he is; here, in fact, they all are. They are the same thinkers who dispute the divine creation of the world, the existence of God, the Ark of the Covenant, the Flood of Noah, the raising of Lazurus, the healing of the blind, the parting of the Red Sea and all the miracles of both Testaments, on the basis of only physical laws, historical records, archeological remains and reason. Holy objects can't kill by touch, the Earth has never flooded entirely, the dead can't be raised, the blind made to see, nor the seas to part. It is just not reasonable.
These people completely ignore the reality of spirit, which by definition cannot be apprehended by reason nor proven by science. I happen to be a Christian, but not because I know the historical proofs of the miracles. My faith doesn't hinge on the physical truth of the Resurrection or whether or not Jesus's life according to the gospels was accurately remembered. My faith is based not upon what Jesus did but upon what he preached: love, forgive, and always have faith. Be kind, be giving, be helpful, be patient, be humble, be respectful, be slow to anger and be tolerant, for no one is perfect. Admit your shortcomings and try not to repeat them.
Show me how a world that would reject such things as these in favor of a code of conduct based purely on human reason and natural laws, without any measure of right or wrong, and stripped of any divine authority or purpose for human life beyond survival at any cost could create a better world, and then we'll talk.
The world's religions, they said, have in their fanatic fighting against each other, caused the fracturing of the world, pitting Jews against Muslims, Catholics against Protestants, and Hindu against Buddhist. All human misery would vanish if only men would embrace modern knowledge and science, use their own human reason, and eschew ancient religious "superstitions."
What these rationalists may be forgetting is that such a world as they are promoting was tried, before, and it didn't work very well. It was called the Age of Reason, and ironically came to fullness at the time of the founding of America, at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
The Christian Church was at its lowest ebb of influence since its formation. In France, following the French Revolution, Napoleon, having been elected by plebiscite, seized Notre Dame Cathedral from the Church, threatened clergy with torture and death, and rededicated the famous structure to "the Goddess of Reason." He then forced the Pope to crown him within its walls, which he had ordered redecorated as a Roman temple with round arches rather than the pointed vaults of the Gothic age, Emperor of the French Empire (modeled after ancient Rome). He built the Arc de Triomph atop the Etoile and the Vendome Column on the site that had recently guillotined nearly the entire French aristocracy in the Reign of Terror, forced the citizens of the new Age of Reason to wear Roman togas and refurnish their homes with torchiere lamps and chaise lounges as had the Romans, and enjoy the fruits of liberte, egalite, and fraternite, the same ideals the French had supported in our own revolution a decade or so earlier.
When things didn't work, he reverted to type, invaded most of the rest of Europe, and caused quite a ruckus until stopped, finally, at Waterloo by sea and Moscow by land. So much for the "Age of Reason."
But most Americans today believe, mistakenly, that America was founded by Christians persecuted in Europe and driven to the New World by religious intolerance. The pilgrims of Plymouth and Jamestown colonies came for many reasons, but they weren't necessarily Christians, and some century and a half later, when the signers of the Declaration of Independence met in 1776, after the fullness of the Enlightenment had produced some of the finest thought since the Classical philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had argued by dialectic in the Greek Academy and Lyceum, there was hardly a Christian to be found among them. As were most men of the Enlightenment, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Monroe and others were Deists, not Christians. They placed their faith in reason, not religion. And they had the wisdom to keep religion separate from matters of the state.
Notice I did not say keep religion out of the social order, but separate from matters of government. Freedom of the faith and practice of one's religion was, in fact, guaranteed by the Constitution by these same founding fathers, these Deists. And one must ask why.
I believe that those men of reason, unlike Napoleon, must have recognized that religion is based not upon physical realities but upon the reality of the spiritual that infuses with meaning the physical existence we are so much more aware of, that spirit is the essential force that has inspired man since the dawn of time to struggle, to persevere, to tolerate, to love, to forgive, to endure, to continue forward against a flood of scorn and doubt by others, and ultimately to triumph over a purely evidentiary physical environment. And from religion, if we are extremely fortunate, we might even learn to love others we might otherwise hate. There is nothing in reason to account for that. Love our enemies? Preposterous! Do good to those that seek to harm me? Ridiculous!
The tomb discoveries mean much to those who have no belief in spirit, for it proves to them, logically, that the Resurrection never happened. There are the bones, they say. Jesus lived, married Mary Magdalene, had children, died, and here he is; here, in fact, they all are. They are the same thinkers who dispute the divine creation of the world, the existence of God, the Ark of the Covenant, the Flood of Noah, the raising of Lazurus, the healing of the blind, the parting of the Red Sea and all the miracles of both Testaments, on the basis of only physical laws, historical records, archeological remains and reason. Holy objects can't kill by touch, the Earth has never flooded entirely, the dead can't be raised, the blind made to see, nor the seas to part. It is just not reasonable.
These people completely ignore the reality of spirit, which by definition cannot be apprehended by reason nor proven by science. I happen to be a Christian, but not because I know the historical proofs of the miracles. My faith doesn't hinge on the physical truth of the Resurrection or whether or not Jesus's life according to the gospels was accurately remembered. My faith is based not upon what Jesus did but upon what he preached: love, forgive, and always have faith. Be kind, be giving, be helpful, be patient, be humble, be respectful, be slow to anger and be tolerant, for no one is perfect. Admit your shortcomings and try not to repeat them.
Show me how a world that would reject such things as these in favor of a code of conduct based purely on human reason and natural laws, without any measure of right or wrong, and stripped of any divine authority or purpose for human life beyond survival at any cost could create a better world, and then we'll talk.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
RenFest '07
We enjoyed Renfest again this year despite the deforestation around the lake due to Hurricane Wilma. Our
favorite part of the "forest" is shown here in 2005 and currently. It's where we try to get a good picture of the troupe coming through the path with their royal processions several times daily.Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Most for the Least
It usually happens like this: I see them at the first or second class of the semester, then they disappear for several more and no longer respond to attendance. Within a couple of weeks I review and test the first material, which they don't show up for either, and I assume they have dropped the course.
Then a few days later their sponsor, or mentor, or coach, or other wetnurse (everyone has some sponsor, it seems, lurking behind the bench in loco parentis) emails me to assure me that they are vitally concerned about Johnny or Suzie's progress in my class and will do all they can to be sure they are successful, and how has their attendence been, and are they meeting their assignments, and please contact them all about the course and their protege's progress. These emails often coincide with a meeting with parents the next day and may be accompanied by other emailed excuses from the parents themselves about what a rough time Johnny or Suzy has been having healthwise or personally, and how he/she really wants to do well and must have an A to pull his/her cumulative grade out of the cellar and graduate in May, and I'm the only thing standing in the way, and would I work with them closely to make sure their budding scholar gets back on track and passes.
When those emails descend on my campus inbox, I can almost guarantee that the longlost Johnny or Suzie is about to reappear in the next class and request to make up the entire term's work posthaste. If I offer to let them make up the test on the spot, however, they "couldn't possibly do that; I haven't studied for it at all," they say. What they want is time to ask a classmate what was on it, since we've already passed it back and gone over it. That's why I collect and keep all copies and change the test.
Somehow we have trained an entire generation to believe that they have a right to succeed in everything and have everything and do everything, without earning it. Rules are for fools, and if they run into obstacles or problems along the way, there are always others to run interference for him, always ways around requirements, and always someone else to bail them out of their jam. Their only object, it seems, is to do whatever they want to do, whenever and wherever they want to do it, for there's a good chance they won't be caught or face any penalty for their misdeeds. And the idea that somehow they must take responsibility for their actions and that there are consequences and a price to be paid for their sidewinding slither through life's challenges is simply lost on them. All they must learn is the art of the excuse, and all will be smooth sailing through life.
Then a few days later their sponsor, or mentor, or coach, or other wetnurse (everyone has some sponsor, it seems, lurking behind the bench in loco parentis) emails me to assure me that they are vitally concerned about Johnny or Suzie's progress in my class and will do all they can to be sure they are successful, and how has their attendence been, and are they meeting their assignments, and please contact them all about the course and their protege's progress. These emails often coincide with a meeting with parents the next day and may be accompanied by other emailed excuses from the parents themselves about what a rough time Johnny or Suzy has been having healthwise or personally, and how he/she really wants to do well and must have an A to pull his/her cumulative grade out of the cellar and graduate in May, and I'm the only thing standing in the way, and would I work with them closely to make sure their budding scholar gets back on track and passes.
When those emails descend on my campus inbox, I can almost guarantee that the longlost Johnny or Suzie is about to reappear in the next class and request to make up the entire term's work posthaste. If I offer to let them make up the test on the spot, however, they "couldn't possibly do that; I haven't studied for it at all," they say. What they want is time to ask a classmate what was on it, since we've already passed it back and gone over it. That's why I collect and keep all copies and change the test.
Somehow we have trained an entire generation to believe that they have a right to succeed in everything and have everything and do everything, without earning it. Rules are for fools, and if they run into obstacles or problems along the way, there are always others to run interference for him, always ways around requirements, and always someone else to bail them out of their jam. Their only object, it seems, is to do whatever they want to do, whenever and wherever they want to do it, for there's a good chance they won't be caught or face any penalty for their misdeeds. And the idea that somehow they must take responsibility for their actions and that there are consequences and a price to be paid for their sidewinding slither through life's challenges is simply lost on them. All they must learn is the art of the excuse, and all will be smooth sailing through life.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Something's Changed around Here
I went shopping for a replacement ps2/usb adapter today, and on the way I swung in to Hess to fill my tank. The Hess station had worn-out instructions and labels on the pumps, so it was hard to tell which way the credit card slot wanted me to position my card from the partly-worn drawing. The "start" button I was supposed to press had been completely erased and looked like a bullet hole in a plastic square. More than once the pump speaker has blared out at me "Other way!" but this time I was unmonitored. I looked up.
"Wrong way," the lcd said. "Insert card again." I did, another possible way. "Card inserted wrong" the lcd said. The pump wasn't going let me use my credit card, telling me instead to "pay inside." I didn't want to pay inside. I wanted to pay at the pump, as I'm used to. But I went in, got in line behind another guy, and waited my turn to pay in advance. No clerk in sight.
"He's coming right back," the other guy said. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Five minutes later. "He's coming right back," the other guy said again. After ten minutes, I decided he wasn't 'coming right back,' so I left and drove to another pump. Same message: "Pay inside." I decided to drive on.
Office Depot didn't carry my adapter, but they thought Walmart might, so I started for there. Then I saw the Big Beautiful: the new Best Buy was now open, right across the street! I jockeyed my way into the newly-paved lot and entered the Promised Land: Best Buy of Coral Springs!
Before I was halfway through the door, the deep boom boom boom of the car stereo gear's bass amplified speakers which bounce customers of most electronics stores these days rhythmically along the aisles assaulted my ears and vibrated my knees. "WELCOME TO BEST BUY!" a kid barely out of high school wearing a Best Buy Blue teeshirt shouted over the din, thrusting a sale flyer at me as a winsome, matching-teeshirted girl in a ponytail gyrated to the beat and smiled like Vanna White as she worked a cellphone display, blocking my further progress. "Welcome to Best Buy," she mimed, though I couldn't hear a word. I tried to work my way to a section with shelving high enough to block the bass. There was none to be found.
Yep, it's a Best Buy alright, I marvelled, borne by each beat further along the aisles, scanning for the cables and connectors section. The new store was filled with eager young helpers who typically clustered themselves around computer islands in small groups and talked excitedly. Finally a manager, or at least a young fellow who seemed to be at least twenty-one and who wore a tie, asked "May I help you find something?" I showed him my broken adapter. "Mm, this isn't good," he said, pulling it apart. "I don't think we carry anything like that by itself." It was what I expected, so I reached out to take it back. "Wait," he withdrew my item," I'll check with the Geek Squad." The Geek Squad are the Green Berets and Navy Seals of Best Buy and other such stores, the creme de la creme of techies; they actually know something about computers and parts. So elite are they, in fact, that even my presumed "manager" dared not interrupt their commisserations around a computer register. So I waited some more.
Finally one tall geek squadder turned his head, flipped away my manager after a disdainful glance at my lowly broken adapter, and returned to his cybercrowd. My manager handed me the pieces and announced triumphantly, "I was right. We don't have it." with a wide smile.
So I marched out of Best Buy to the boom boom boom of the thousand-watt trunk speakers and headed for Walmart. On the way, however, I was able to fill my gas tank at the 7-11 across from Hess (and to use my card!) Of course, I now had to add my zip code at the pump, "for protection against unauthorized use," the lcd said. And surprise surprise, Walmart didn't carry my adapter either. I finally found it online for $2.50, but had to add $3.45 for postage and another $4.00 handling fee for "orders under $10." Wonder if that guy ever came back to the counter at Hess.
"Wrong way," the lcd said. "Insert card again." I did, another possible way. "Card inserted wrong" the lcd said. The pump wasn't going let me use my credit card, telling me instead to "pay inside." I didn't want to pay inside. I wanted to pay at the pump, as I'm used to. But I went in, got in line behind another guy, and waited my turn to pay in advance. No clerk in sight.
"He's coming right back," the other guy said. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Five minutes later. "He's coming right back," the other guy said again. After ten minutes, I decided he wasn't 'coming right back,' so I left and drove to another pump. Same message: "Pay inside." I decided to drive on.
Office Depot didn't carry my adapter, but they thought Walmart might, so I started for there. Then I saw the Big Beautiful: the new Best Buy was now open, right across the street! I jockeyed my way into the newly-paved lot and entered the Promised Land: Best Buy of Coral Springs!
Before I was halfway through the door, the deep boom boom boom of the car stereo gear's bass amplified speakers which bounce customers of most electronics stores these days rhythmically along the aisles assaulted my ears and vibrated my knees. "WELCOME TO BEST BUY!" a kid barely out of high school wearing a Best Buy Blue teeshirt shouted over the din, thrusting a sale flyer at me as a winsome, matching-teeshirted girl in a ponytail gyrated to the beat and smiled like Vanna White as she worked a cellphone display, blocking my further progress. "Welcome to Best Buy," she mimed, though I couldn't hear a word. I tried to work my way to a section with shelving high enough to block the bass. There was none to be found.
Yep, it's a Best Buy alright, I marvelled, borne by each beat further along the aisles, scanning for the cables and connectors section. The new store was filled with eager young helpers who typically clustered themselves around computer islands in small groups and talked excitedly. Finally a manager, or at least a young fellow who seemed to be at least twenty-one and who wore a tie, asked "May I help you find something?" I showed him my broken adapter. "Mm, this isn't good," he said, pulling it apart. "I don't think we carry anything like that by itself." It was what I expected, so I reached out to take it back. "Wait," he withdrew my item," I'll check with the Geek Squad." The Geek Squad are the Green Berets and Navy Seals of Best Buy and other such stores, the creme de la creme of techies; they actually know something about computers and parts. So elite are they, in fact, that even my presumed "manager" dared not interrupt their commisserations around a computer register. So I waited some more.
Finally one tall geek squadder turned his head, flipped away my manager after a disdainful glance at my lowly broken adapter, and returned to his cybercrowd. My manager handed me the pieces and announced triumphantly, "I was right. We don't have it." with a wide smile.
So I marched out of Best Buy to the boom boom boom of the thousand-watt trunk speakers and headed for Walmart. On the way, however, I was able to fill my gas tank at the 7-11 across from Hess (and to use my card!) Of course, I now had to add my zip code at the pump, "for protection against unauthorized use," the lcd said. And surprise surprise, Walmart didn't carry my adapter either. I finally found it online for $2.50, but had to add $3.45 for postage and another $4.00 handling fee for "orders under $10." Wonder if that guy ever came back to the counter at Hess.
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