Entries in Life

hexmode @ 2008-09-06T18:11:00

2008-09-06T22:11:14Z

"I interviewed one guy who was 31, single, an artist living in Boston, who saw himself as countercultural," Krcmar told LiveScience. "The next day I had an interview with a religious woman with ten children who lived in the Midwest. These people seem like they would disagree about almost everything, but if you ask them about television the things that came out of their mouths were almost identical."
[...]
"It's sort of counter-intuitive, because people think their kids would drive them nuts without TV," Krcmar said. "But parents found that kids became very good at entertaining themselves and didn't need to be entertained all the time by something that was lively and active. They didn’t complain about being bored.

Oh how I wish I didn't have one (sometimes).

(Just realized: I got this from Dan Lyke.)

Bikes to Rwanda: A charity that combines my two loves

2008-09-03T15:53:41Z

Bikes to Rwanda « je vais où?:

These people are doing good things… if you like coffee you should definitely give this video a look.

I love a good cup of coffee. And I love bikes. Bikes to Rwanda combines this with my personal interest in the welfare of Rwanda to help support coffee growers there with inexpensive utility bikes. That's a charity that I can really get behind.

Gorilla fighters in the Congo

2008-09-03T15:36:51Z

Renewed fighting threatens Congo gorillas:

"The army had also stationed a tank on the main road that borders Rwanda, with the gun pointing at the Rwandan hills."

That explains the armed escort we had. Though, I wouldn't expect the escort to help much against a tank.

hexmode @ 2008-09-03T11:18:00

2008-09-03T15:18:32Z

“Next time, we won’t leave”:

But if the enduring image of Gustav is a U.S. soldier with an M-16 denying a citizen the right to return to his home, then you can pretty much write off the next “mandatory” evacuation.

Looks like, as is typical of New Orleans and the feds, they're mishandling the situation.

I'm very glad that Gustav didn't hurt people like Katrina did. The authorities need to recognize this and let people get back to normal as soon as possible.

If you're looking for some first-hand accounts of Gustav, I would point you to a few Twitterers GambitWeekly, NOLAnotes, and MarkMayhew. You should also check out Mark's photostream on flickr especially Cafe du Monde as you've never seen her: empty.

Twitter has a lot of problems, but the one thing it is really good at it getting people's thoughts and impressions published as quickly and easily as possible. In a situation like Gustav where people don't have time to compose blog entries or even full sentances, the stream-of-conciousness that Twitter enables really gives you a feeling for what is happening on the ground.

While I did check out a couple of news sites, most of my information about Gustav came from Twitter via TwitterBerry.

hexmode @ 2008-08-26T23:55:00

2008-08-27T03:55:10Z

winterspeak.com:

Traffic accidents are predominantly caused by people being inattentive. Increase the feeling of risk, and you increase the attention.

(emphasis mine)

hexmode @ 2008-08-26T23:53:00

2008-08-27T03:53:21Z

Do you know any programmers that exhibit these personality traits…?:

Do you know any programmers that exhibit these personality traits…?

I’ve been observing an unusual programmer friend of mine for some time now. (Yeah… a “friend”, that’s it….) He has such a strange combination of potential and incompetence that its hard to tell if he is just lazy or [...]

Why Create? and how to avoid the black hole of "productivity"

2008-08-27T03:48:38Z

When I first came across _why's tweet on PerlBuzz, I thought it was so profound (by which I mean, anti-consumeristic), that I told dvfmama right away.

when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.

This is why I would rather listen to my three-year-old belt out show tunes than watching American Idol.
This is why I would much rather see my daughter practice standing on her head than watching America's Got Talent.
This is why I can only zone for so long while I idle away hour after hour in solitary web surfing or late night TV watching.
This is why I was so happy to give the Ugandan Ministry of Health something that they would use.

I hate being a consumer. I fall into the "entertain me" trap more often than I want to confess, but I hate seeing myself there. I hate the thought that my children will be passive participants in culture rather than creative, engaged people.

This doesn't mean that I want them to go out and get a degree in the Humanities. (dvfmama wouldn't allow it anyway.) So I'm probably already diverging somewhat from what _why originally meant. But who cares? Do not wait for other people. Get out there, do things, be engaged, and tell others about it. (By the way, my co-worker-at-a-distance, Shannon picked up on the Why Create? theme.)

But that last bit ("tell others about it") is a key I've been missing for some time. And, for someone who spends 90% of his time working 400 miles away from his co-workers, this is a real shame and, worse, a real impediment to good work.

I'm good communicator when I need to be, but till recently, I haven't been in the habit of communicating regularly with other people that I'm working with. Sure, a lot of this was the physical distance, the lack of face-to-face time — the fact that I abhor teleconferences. But a lot of the problem (and the problem shows up even when I'm working down the hall from people) can be fixed by just sending out a regular email, making sure that everyone who might be concerned knows what I'm doing. Sure, a lot of times it'll get filed in the bit-bucket, but (and I've begun to realize this and put it into practice more since my trip to Uganda) communication isn't optional, it isn't overhead; it's a necessary habit.

Of course, it was really helpful that I had this epiphany about communication and started putting it into practice in the past couple of weeks. Today, I met with some IT auditors here in Chapel Hill and told them what my role was in the organization. Before this, I probably would have been much more resentful of the very idea. But for now, at least, I'm feel like I'm on top of the world and I'm happy to tell them what it is I do.

hexmode @ 2008-08-26T22:09:00

2008-08-27T02:09:56Z

Where have all the real men gone? - Times Online:

As long as men feel marginalised by the women whose favours and approval they seek; as long as they are alienated from their children and treated as criminals by family courts; as long as they are disrespected by a culture that no longer values masculinity tied to honour; and as long as boys are bereft of strong fathers and our young men and women wage sexual war, then we risk cultural suicide.

Wrecked

2008-08-15T15:46:21Z

It has been a while since I had any kind of injury from cycling. Today I made up for some of that lost time.

Excited to have my bike back, I went out this morning for the first time to ride. And I learned an important lesson: after you've been off it for a while, it is best to check your gear before expecting to ride like you were before.

It rained some last night and the roads were still wet. On the first good downhill run, I tried to put on the brakes and they didn't respond the way I expected them to. Down I went, sliding along the road for a good 10 feet.

Apart from a bruised and swollen leg and road rash on various parts of my body, I'm alive. The same can't be said for my shorts which were shredded. I took a few minutes to lay on the side of the road and recover a bit from the shock. Then I limped back home.

I'm just disappointed that I won't be putting in any miles for a few days.

Success in Uganda

2008-08-13T13:17:02Z

This week I start working on a project to help gather medical information in villages throughout Rwanda, so the project I've been working on for the past couple of months is officially over. I've written my postmortem and had a chance to recuperate from the travel (including the airline losing my baggage in London and a screaming three year old on an eight hour flight — horror stories best only hinted at).

But this last project looks as if it was about as successful as I could hope for, so indulge me a few moments while I tell you what we did.

While medical information is gathered throughout Uganda, reports are regularly written, and analysis is frequently done, sharing information between health care workers and officials is problematic. Until now, there was only one small central library at the Ministry of Health which held only a single stand-alone PC for accessing and reading electronic documents.

To make matters worse, the proprietary software for storing and accessing the electronic documents only accepted PDFs, so anything a doctor wrote in, say, Microsoft Word had to be converted before it could be used in the system.

With the help of the Knowledge Management (KM) team at IntraHealth, a few of us on the Informatics team put together a Joomla+KnowledgeTree combination that would allow health care workers and officials to upload any Office document, collaborate around them, and easily access them from any networked computer.

My work centered on the integration and initial set up of the software — putting it all together in a way that made the KM people happy. And, frankly, much of that work isn't any different than what I could be doing in almost any Tech Shop or corporate environment. And for a while, it was like any software project, full of frustrations and delays. While KnowledgeTree was an obviously mature piece of software, I found some of its idiosyncrasies irritating and some of its capabilities anemic.

The real difference — the real satisfaction — came when I was finally able to sit down with the librarian at the Ministry of Health in Uganda and I heard him say “This is great, it is so much better and easier to than our current system! And we don't have convert all our files to PDF first!”

It was a relief to hear those words. Until then, doubt still lingered. But after that meeting, while there was still a lot of work to be done and a lot of work that I wouldn't be able to complete, now I knew that we had a successful, even worthwhile, product.

Even better, the technical people I worked with and trained as well as the Ministry workers all understood the usefulness and had the same goal in mind: fostering adoption of the new “electronic library” throughout Uganda.

Now, back to the work. Hopefully I'll have another success story in a few months.

Hey, Mzungu!

2008-08-06T21:58:35Z

As you walk around many African cities, you'll hear one word popping up over and over: Mzungu.

It means "White Person" and comes from a contraction that means "Person who moves around."

Earlier this week, I bought myself a T-Shirt with "Mzungu" emblazoned on it. It seems pretty obvious that people don't realize you understand that when they say the word they're talking about you. Wearing the T-Shirt gives them a clue.

Tonight, I wore the shirt down to dinner. Several of the wait staff and the manager of the restaurant made comments about my shirt.

"Interesting shirt"

"Like it?"

"Yeah"

One man asked me if I knew what the word meant and how I knew. We had a lengthy conversation where we talked about culture, movies, and the way people act. During this, one of other men came up and said "How are you, Mzungu?" "Fine, thank you."

That was all he wanted to say, but we both got a kick out of it.

Riding the Nile

2008-08-04T21:25:59Z

Yesterday, I almost died. It was well worth the $75.

Friday, I took one of the local people we work with up on his offer. When I mentioned I wanted to go raft the Nile, he said he would be happy to take me down there. I called him to confirm and we arraged to meet at 10 on Saturday morning.

When Saturday rolled around, something came up and he couldn't make it. Determined not to miss another chance, I found a rafting operator who was willing to pick me up at the hotel, take me rafting, feed me 3 meals and drive me back home. We were to leave Sunday morning.

I woke up and met them bright and early. We drove around Kampala picking up other people who wanted to go rafting: a couple from Holland, an Italian and his Ugandan girlfriend, and half the crew of a Chinese telecommunications firm. I started talking to the sales manager for the group. He told me that China is funding over a billion dollars worth of telecommunications projects in Uganda. The company he works with is one of the construction firms that bids on projects to build cell towers.

As we drove the 80km (50mi) or so from Kampala to Jinja, I was struck by how different the area was than what I saw of Rwanda. The area I saw looked more developed, more exploited. In the middle of fields, hulking factories sat belching smoke from their stacks. Rwanda, by way of contrast, seemed to be filled with only terraced farms.

Before we even started down the river, a bad omen popped up. A chinese woman stepped on a nail and it went straight through her foot. She hobbled away, but her determination brought her back at lunchtime.

So, anyway, we hopped in the raft and sat through 20 or 30 minutes of introduction to how to ride a raft. The guide made sure we knew how to respond when he told us “Forward”, “Back”, “GET DOWN!” and “HARD FORWARD!” We all needed it. It was the first experience riding rapids for all of us — even more amazing was that two people on our raft couldn't swim! The guide didn't seem to have a problem bringing them along even after we practiced what would happen if the raft flipped and they both freaked out.
We started just before our first bit of rapids. Only a Class 3 or so, it was plentwy of fun. After that We drifted and paddled downstream to where we came upon some rapids that our guide called “Class 5 and half”. The other side of the Nile at that point was being damned up for a power station and the volume of water over the already-Class 5 rapids was increased. He gave us a warning and a few pointers and then we went into it.

On the first bump, almost everyone went over. On the second bump, idiot that I was, I thought “I want to go in the water!” and didn't hang on. Into the water I went.

It was here that I learned why it is important to hold onto the rope that runs around the edge of the raft.

I was under the water but knew I was coming up soon, so I didn't worry too much. When I came up, I took a breath…

But not a deep one. The water didn't let me. I moved into the 2m (6ft) pile of water at that point. I didn't have enough air and I was struggling to breath and I was scared. I saw the light, but air was suddenly very far away and the river was pushing me along. The river ignored my life jacket's desire to surface and pushed me along under water forever.

When I finally surfaced I tried to get the attention of the crew with Kayaks. Still struggling to get any air into my lungs I began to panic more and felt very weak.

When a kayaker finally came with distance, I grabbed on for dear life.

After this experience, when everyone was back in the boat, our guide made a point of telling us to grab the rope with both hands and, more importantly, DON'T LET GO when we he told us “GET DOWN”. Even when we hit more Class 5 rapids, we had no trouble staying in the boat from then on.

We hit more rapids that morning but spent some of the time just drifting in the water, sometimes jumping into the Nile and swimming or floating along side the raft.

When we reached our lunch spot, the food hadn't shown up, so I got to spend some time just floating on my back watching eagles high in the sky or diving beneath the water, all the terror from earlier almost totally forgotten in the beatific surroundings.
(Not all was total bliss, though. I missed the spot to get out of the river and walked through what I thought was some mud. Turns out that was the spot the local cowherds brought their charges to drink. And the cows did a bit more than drink in that water. The local people laughed when they saw a Mzungu with dung from their cows all over his legs. I found the right place in the water and rinsed off.)

After lunch, we hit the water again for more rowing and riding.

We saw many a pastoral scene where women and children were washing clothes by the river … a few were even bare-chested, National Geographic style.

The wildlife was amazing. This was the first time I saw a kingfisher in action. I've never seen a bird hover quite so effortlessly.

We saw fish eagles, monkeys, egrets and men punting their bike across the river. Unfortunatly, I wans't able to capture any of these since my camera isn't waterproof.

The trip over 27km (17mi) of the Nile was amazing (though I'm sure I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much had I died). It was about the best $75 I've ever spent.

(Pictures when I get a chance.)

Apologies to the TSA

2008-08-02T07:38:15Z

A couple of days ago, I insinuated that someone at the TSA had stolen my camera. I hereby apologize for disparaging the character of such a fine American institution.

Today, I put on my boots for the first time and found my camera. I had forgotten that I tossed it in my boots when I was hurriedly rearranging my stuff just before going into the airport.

Couple more thoughts on Health and Traveling

2008-08-01T15:55:25Z

Just before leaving, I dropped my bike off at the shop for a "tune-up". One thing that I did ask them to do was put new tires on it since I have 1500 miles on those tires and I'm trying to be a little pro-active.

Still, I did fllirt with the idea of packing my bike to Uganda. I would be the only white cyclist out here. I did see one black roadie and while there are a fair number of people riding beaters , but Boda Bodas and cars seem to be what most people use for transport (if they aren't using their own two feet). And believe me, you can see it in the air.

While my next trip to Africa might include some road cycling, I have to improvise this time around for my exercise. I'm on the 6th floor of the hotel (which makes it the 7th floor since they use European floor numbering). So I run up and down the stairs several times a day. Instead of getting a driver to take me back to the hotel (c'mon! I can't be that posh all the time!) I'll walk the mile or so back uphill.

I doubt I'm burning the 1500 calories/day I was at home, but if I can just remember that I don't have to eat EVERYTHING I'll be alright.

Hurry up and wait + Drugs

2008-08-01T15:35:36Z

Today, I spent most of my time waiting on a server. I couldn't get Ubuntu to install on a Dell Poweredge server. Suse worked fine, though. (It looks like I might have avoided some of the problem by changing a bios setting from "I2O" to "Mass Storage" but there doesn't seem to be a good reason that Ubuntu wouldn't work where Suse could.)

This meant even more waiting for downloads over a very slow, African satellite connection. The installation CDs I had for Suse didn't have Java 1.5 and, joy of joys, I couldn't find Java RPMs Suse 10. So I'm downloading an installer from Sun. 17MB.

Oh, and did I mention that KnowledgeTree needs OpenOffice running in the background? Another 170Mb download. (And why is the OpenOffice download finishing before the Java one?)

While I waited, I sympathized with a fellow American suffering from a recurrence of Strep. She had used up her pennicilin just before we left on the trip. She was fine when we got here, but then seemed to have a flare-up.

Of course, being used to the American medical system, we didn't realize that you can purchase pennicillin (and most other drugs) over the counter here after talking to the pharmacist/chemist. Even though my brother and brother-in-law are both pharmicists, I've often wondered what exactly they were supposed to be doing besides complaining about drug-ignorant doctors. Seems like the Ugandans (and many other countries, for that matter) have the right idea.

Instead of treating doctors like health-gods who are supposed to know everything (when the evidence clearly shows how ignorant many of them are about drugs), it would seem like they could work more closely with the dispensers of the drugs to make sure they get the right drug and dosage to a patient.

In a related note, I had to get an anti-malaria drug, Malarone, for my trip to Uganda. I knew I was up-to-date on all my other meds since I traveled just south of here a few months ago. So, instead of going to the Travel Nurse again, I went to my family doctor. (He had been bugging me to come in anyway when I saw him at church.) He gave me a perscription for Malarone that the pharmacist was willing to fill, but forgot to put down a dosage.

That's the perfect situation for getting the drugs directly from the pharmacist without requiring the bother of a scrip-writer as the middleman.

Still, it was gratifying to see my doctor. I hadn't been in for 3 and a half years and, in the meantime, had dropped 30 lbs.

God Bless the TSA

2008-07-31T20:16:20Z

So, I arrive in Kampala and find a little love note from the TSA: "We rifled through your things. Carry on, citizen!"

In fact, I could tell they had before I even saw the note. Everything had was shuffled around. Not the "settles during travel" sort of shuffling but "you pack like an idiot, let me show you better" sort of shuffling. Well, thank you very much. I suppose I can be glad that not only am I learning better ways to pack my things, but I'm also being protected from bombs and such being smuggled aboard planes.

I mean, at least they're successful at that, right? (If you don't click the link, it points to a news article from earlier this year about TSA failing to spot explosives.)

No, I could tell they had searched my bags even without the note. Whoever searched them decided to pocket my camera and bluetooth headset. I suppose this is just another perk of working at the TSA and I shouldn't begrudge them this small compensation for their wonderful work in protecting us from terrorist shoe bombers.

(At least these things are easily replaced. Unlike this guy's experience with custom-made equipment, I can go to the mall to replace them.)

(Update: I found my camera and apologized.)

Uganda Arrival

2008-07-31T08:05:04Z

We arrived in Uganda last night. I'm here to finish installing the Knowledge Management Portal (Knowledge Tree + Joomla) that I put together over the past few weeks and help train the local staff.

Following are my first impressions of Uganda. Keep in mind that I arrived after sunset and am staying at a nice hotel so my first impressions are especially limited. Still, using my time in Rwanda as a frame of reference, I do have a little insight.

During the drive from the airport in Entebbe to Kampala, I kept thinking of how I could describe what I've seen so far here in Africa. My first thought was that much of it is like many rural areas of the U.S. during the early 20th century. But there are a lot more cars and more electricity.

Then I thought about the government in Africa. The "Wild West" seems to work a little better, then. The West with electricity and cars. And paved roads.

Of course, I wasn't yet in Kampala when I was thinking about all this. What I saw of Kampala last night, and from what I can see today, Kampala is fairly modern. Short, modern office buildings, plenty of paved roads. We'll see if my impression changes once I actually get a chance to drive around today.

Speaking of roads: In Uganda, they drive on the left. In Rwanda (the other land-locked country just south of Uganda), they drive on the right. I wonder what happens at a border crossing. Oh, and they use yet-another-power-connection. I had to pay 15,000 UG Shillings for a new adaptor today. Highway Robbery, I tell you!

I suppose you can tell exactly which European country colonized which African nation by looking at their power plugs and on which side of the road they drive. Uganda is clearly a former British colony -- left side driving and British power plugs -- wheras Rwanda, with its power plugs and right side driving is clearly a former Belgium colony.

One more thing before I start work. International flights are about the most fun you can have (if you don't sense sarcasm there, let me point it out for you here).

Take Amsterdam, for instance. I hopped off my flight from Philadelphia, went through customs once to enter then country and then again to hop on a flight to Uganda. Hurrah! At least this was better than transiting the U.S. where they make you grab your luggage even if you're just catching the next flight out of the country.

Customs (long lines, lots of waiting) and switching flights (long layovers, long lines, lots of waiting) mean that I left Philly at 6:30pm Tuesday and, after hours in airports and whatnot, arrived in my hotel in Uganda at 9:00pm Wednesday. Not much jet lag, though. I seem to have a knack for sleeping on planes -- even in the cramped economy class conditions.

Winkyfrown in the wild

2008-07-25T20:57:35Z

Re: Google Tech Talk:

This sounds nice. Vim can not do this ;(

Four years ago, under the influence of dcm, I purchased winkyfrown.com/. We were hoping to promote the newly discovered side-smiley: the winkyfrown:

;(

It has taken a while, but it looks like it is finally starting to catch on.

Women and Computing

2008-07-25T15:49:55Z

One of the never-ending subjects of Free Software is "Where are the Women?"

While I see it as mostly a non-problem -- that is, there are some obvious problems that need to be fixed with time, but no one is going to rectify them right now -- I'm doing what I can to encourage my daughters and son in the field.

In the meantime, The Decline of Women in Computer Science from 1940-1982 has some fascinating anecdotes:

Computing was unique, however, in the sense that the fledgling profession was still in its infancy and had no strong pre-war gender socialization. This fact must have helped the women in that the returning men lacked programming expertise, and clearly had no expectation of “returning” to a programming job. The lack of structure in the industry was also a boon to women programmers who wanted to continue working even after they became pregnant and had children. Most notably, “Computations, Inc., of Harvard, Massachusetts (outside Route 128), formed in 1958 by Elsie Shutt and several other programmer-mothers who worked part-time and largely at home on problems contracted out to them by their former employers, such as Minneapolis-Honeywell and Raytheon”. These women, widely known as the “Pregnant Programmers” were mentioned by speaker Richard H. Bolt at the M.I.T Symposium on American Women in Science and Engineering in 1964. Bolt, who was a lecturer in Political Science at M.I.T and also a former Associate Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1960-1963, also mentioned the following:

“I asked one of the unmarried women, a computer programmer in industry, if she thought a woman’s activities as a mother and homemaker would interfere with her opportunities in a career. ‘One good thing about programming,’ she said, ‘is that you can work part time.’”

Depressing

2008-07-23T02:17:43Z

The Modern Stealth Depression:

Yes, it's here. Welcome to the Depression. No, don't drop whatever it is you're doing. Don't get up. It's not going anywhere. It will wait. It's just going to sit over here in the corner and read a magazine while you do whatever it is you need to do.

No RAGBRAI for me

2008-07-23T00:13:16Z

Despite planning for it quite some time I won't be at the last few days of RAGBRAI this year.

I originally had to cancel because I thought I would be out of the country this week. And now I'm not, but plans changed too late to re-schedule.

I'm a little bummed about it since this year, I've really been riding -- 450 miles so far this month -- and I'd like to test myself with a longer ride. Maybe a Metric Century...

Best week EVAH!

2008-07-07T02:46:51Z

As Nathan said, I've been putting down a lot of miles. Today, I rode 40 miles, bringing my total for the week to 180 miles (and, for what its worth, 9600 calories). I've got just over 1000 miles on this bike, 500 miles a month.

(In other news, I need to write about my work on open source soon.)

Cycling Madman

2008-07-06T03:00:14Z

As I told my tweeps, I did 50 miles today.

This brings me to a total of 140 miles for the week -- closer to where I want to be, but not quite there yet.

I hope to get 40 miles in tomorrow and then settle back down to 30 miles/day for the rest of the week.

And, at this point, I can tell you that I probably won't make that goal. I know 20 miles/day is reasonable for me, but adding another 10 miles is pushing the envelope. At least right now it is. We'll see how I do tomorrow.

Since I've been riding more and talking about it, I have encouraged several other people to consider taking it up. A friend of mine is a manager at the Panera Bread about 10 miles from here. He has seen me in there enough times (a little more than once a week for the past couple of months) that, combined with rising gas prices, he was seriously considering getting a bike and riding.

Another acquaintance (at the Thursday morning study group (I leave at 5:45 to get there for the 6:30 start) was impressed that I was riding in the city. "Oh, you just have to have confidence and act like you belong," I said. "Cars are like dogs, they can sense fear." She seemed to be considering expanding her riding options on the half recumbent she shares with her husband.

Its amazing, really, how doing something you love can affect other people. I love to ride and, while I'm not going to convert anyone who is dead-set against getting on a bike, some more ambivalent cyclists are thinking "Hey, I could do a little bit more." People who are absolutely terrified of riding will begin to think about some of the statistics I cite for them.

Parenting Guilt ain't Real Guilt

2008-06-23T03:20:01Z

Jim pointed to this article on Mommy Guilt and wondered if mothers in his own church would concur.

Well, I'm not a mother (but I'm married to one) and I'm not in Jim's church, so what I say will be absolutely meaningless. Still, I can't shut up. So here goes.

There is so much in the Ms. McCleneghan's piece that I want to take issue with. Where to start?

First, I should point out that fathers have guilt, too. We don't have a cute name for it, at least I've never really heard other fathers complain about "Daddy Guilt", but, all the same, I imagine most dads from the last 20 years feel a little guilty. For me, I wonder "Am I spending enough time with the kids?" (I work at home, for pete's sake!) or "Am I providing enough stimulation for the kids?"

And lets not get started on the unfortunate fact that I accidentally broke my 11-year-old daughter's nose this spring. So, yeah, dads get guilt.

But you know what? Most of it is bogus.

If I feel guilty about repeated physical abuse of my children, that's one thing. That is valid guilt. I should feel guilty. And the guilt should be my sign that I need to turn around and do something differently.

But disposable diapers? Formula vs. breastfeeding?

The world isn't perfect and we can't live perfect lives. And we shouldn't feel guilty because of that. But I'm sure I don't need to tell an ordained minister that.

Which brings me to my second point. I'm gonna go out on a limb a little here, but I feel it is a sturdy one.

Prayers of confession should not be done corporately.

If the only time for you to practice confession is in a corporate setting, then you're doing it wrong. In the Orthodox church, everyone is encouraged to go to a spiritual director and (perhaps separately) individual confession.

The spiritual director will tell you "Why are you beating yourself up about this?" And then your confessor, if you really feel the need to confess your guilt about disposable diapers, will patiently stand with you and listen to you confess your guilt over disposable diapers to God.

And then he'll tell you Now, having no further care for the sins you have confessed, you may go in peace.

See, corporate prayers of confession are wrong because they're generic. They don't address my guilt or the things I need to change. No wonder Ms. McCleneghan is tuning out. It should be her sign that something needs to change.

(Of course, I had to go look up the Methodist Prayers of Confession and I suppose that in some ways they are similar to the prayers prayed during Forgiveness Vespers so you can see I'm even more full of nonsense than usual, but I still maintain that the missing piece -- private confession -- would be a great way to get rid of silly parenting guilt. Guilt needs a release valve. Confession is meant to be that valve.)

No Comfort in Faith

2008-06-20T03:38:34Z

(Found this sitting in a queue from a while back. For some reason, I posted this on LiveJournal, but not here. Now is a good a time as any to get it out of my system.)

The recent revelation that Mother Teresa was a doubting Thomas almost the entire time she worked in India but yet remained faithful shows the lie that Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens would like to promulgate: belief in God is comforting. (And here, I thought we were still struggling with Catholic Guilt.)

While I've no doubt that some believers gain primarily comfort from their belief, the religion that Jesus teaches isn't very comforting at all. "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

And, of course, any Mennonite knows that Martyrs Mirror is filled with stories of people who endured a great deal of suffering. My own children have listened to the lives of many martyrs in the Orthodox lexicon of Saints, Nikolai Velimirovich's Prologue -- so many that whenever they hear the Emperor Diocletian's name mentioned, they can tell you the end of the story.

Perhaps some people make Christianity out to be a nice bedtime story, but anyone who pays attention to what Jesus said or what Paul wrote knows that any comfort offered isn't the whole story: we are called to live sacrificially.

Which is exactly what Mother Teresa did.

What strikes me most among discussions like this one is the idea that Mother Teresa had an obligation to announce her doubts to the world. "She's a public figure" the thinking goes "and she kept this from us?"

Well, no, her struggle with doubt or the lack of God's Presence was her own and she kept it between herself and her spiritual confessors. If she wanted to announce her doubt and be done with it, she could have done that without making her life any more uncomfortable.

Mother Teresa was doing something completely foreign to most of us. Jack Welch was a better humanitarian. Mother Teresa was not a humanitarian and Christopher Hitchen's was right to discredit this notion of her. Jesus said "You will always have the poor" and Mother Teresa understood this to mean that we should be more concerned with loving the poor and having compassion for them than with giving them a handout.

"You take care of their tomorrows, I take care of their todays," she said.

Secularists who don't know Mother Teresa won't appreciate the way she chose to use her money. Evangelicals won't appreciate her Gospel. Atheists see her doubts as her hypocrisy.

But there is something else going on, also. She identified with the poor in the same way Christ identified with us. She emulated his compassion.

And of course isn't that the whole Problem of Evil all over again? As Judas pointed out, the money spent on the perfume Mary poured on Jesus feet was a year's wages -- surely there was a more practical use for it. Surely Jesus could have done more than forgive sins, couldn't he? He was God, after all, shouldn't he have done more?

Mother Teresa is someone many people can admire from a distance. Most will be repulsed by her, though, if they take a closer look. She shows us exactly why true religion isn't comforting.