Inconsistency

It is my opinion that people who profess to hold certain values and take them seriously should live consistently with those values.

I think of this every time I see a certain person who used to be my boss.  We had a contentious parting, some of which was my fault.  But once it was clear that I was going to have to leave the company, I picked an exit date that turned out not to be convenient for the company.  The company tried to change my mind, but I felt I had suffered enough humiliation being forced out that I could salvage some of my dignity by going on my terms.

In an effort to assure my co-worker, whom my boss thought my untimely departure would find problematic, said to my co-worker words to the effect:  "We have a lot of friends at [name of company Stuart is going to] and we'll talk with them so -- [here's the punch line] -- if it doesn't work out for us, it may not work out for Stuart."

In other words, they would try to scuttle my new gig because even though I was being forced out, I was leaving sooner than would be convenient for them.  This person who was willing to try to undermine my new job for the sake of convenience is a professed Christian.  He even is holding religious meetings during business hours at my old company.  Forcing someone out and then threatening to scuttle his new job doesn't strike me as being very consistent with Christian values.  And in my opinion, consistency is important.

A Parable on Loyalty

A man finds himself to be a member of the working crew of a ship.  He cannot remember how this happened, but somehow it seems to be a natural role to have.  He is assigned a particular job as a crew member and he performs his work ably, even enthusiastically for several years.

His ship seldom if ever goes to port, but exchanges goods and services with other ships and thus is able to provide the necessities of life for its crew.  Each crew member is responsible to keep in reserve a portion of what he receives and to build himself a small life boat that will carry him and his saved-up provisions after he is no longer able to serve a useful function on the ship. Sometimes men decide to leave the ship when they think they have enough stuff saved up, even if they are still ably performing their tasks.

After our man has served on his ship for quite a while he thinks about his future and decides that in a few years he will have enough stuff saved up to leave the ship.  He includes this plan in his official goals that he reviews with his mentor on the ship.  The captain of the ship thinks it's a bit "negative" for our guy to be talking about his exit while there is still much to be done on board.  But our man feels he's contributed well and is looking forward to more self-directed years he may have left.  And he has been training another man to take his job when he leaves.  Everyone thinks that this other guy will do a great job when our man departs.

As the date for our guy's departure approaches, he realizes that hes has miscalculated and he does not have enough provisions saved up.  He needs to keep working well beyond the date he had announced. For months he tries to figure out how he can survive after leaving the ship, but nothing is working out.  One day he blurts out to the first mate that he is not going to leave the ship.  And he implies that there is nothing the first mate or captain can do to make him leave as he had planned.  The captain is furious when he hears about this. He tells our man  "We're not your lifeboat!  You're going to stick to your announced plan!"  Our man is duly repentant for his outburst, but the captain explains that he has to go, because if he stays, the trainee may decide to jump ship.  So he realizes that the ship's leadership has made it's decision and he is going to have to leave.

While the date for his departure is still several months off, his ship encounters another ship with which they frequently do business.  Our guy notices that this ship is advertising for a worker to fill the exact job he has been doing all these years.  He contacts them and a short while later is offered the job.  Starting date to be decided.

Our man thinks about the starting date.  His ship is in the midst of a busy time.  But his job isn't particularly busy right now and his trainee is completely ready to take over.  So he sets the date and informs the captain and first mate of his decision.  The first mate calls our guy in for a discussion.   "How can you leave us right in this very busy time?" he asks. "Have you no loyalty to your ship?"

This seems like an odd question to our man.  Sure, he has loyalty to his ship, but now he has a new ship.

Grand Teton and Yellowstone

Elizabeth and I spent 10 days out west in Wyoming (Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone).  Here are a few pictures.

On Language and Friendship

I'm getting divorced. So is my wife. We have some friends in common as you would expect after 36 years of marriage. Some of them are more in touch with Janis than with me -- most of them, really. I got this e-mail from one of our friends (the wife of the friend-couple):

Perhaps Janis told you that she has let us know that you would like a divorce. The only explanation she has shared is that you want "emotional intimacy", but not with her. We are looking forward to her visit in January, and extended time talking about anything & everything that she wants to share & offering our support to a dear friend.

This is incredibly confusing...we regard both of you as friends, and don't want to form an opinion of you without first hearing from you, if you would like to share with us what has brought you to this life-changing decision. We will be sharing what we know with our kids on Thursday, and are hopeful we'll be able to present everything fairly about this situation, as you were a couple that they probably held as a model for marriage.

The language this friend used was striking to me. Especially these phrases:

• "don't want to form an opinion of you"
• "sharing what we know with our kids .... present everything fairly"

OK, I admit that it's difficult to hit exactly the right emotional tone in an e-mail, but the tone of this message was challenging rather than supporting. I felt as though I'm on trial and being given a chance to take the stand in my own defense before being judged around the table on Thanksgiving by this family.

Absent from this communication were phrases such as

• "we love you both"
• "there are two sides to every story and we'd love to hear yours"
• "divorce is hard for everyone: how can we support you"
• "this is really none of our business and we certainly aren't going to discuss this with our kids, but we just want to understand your point of view"

So I declined the opportunity to take the stand. Oh, yes, and I unfriended her and put a rule in my inbox to delete future messages from her. There! That'll show her to mess with me! Immature reaction? Probably.

Let them think what they want about me. If who I've been with them during the few years we lived in the same town and now over the past 20 years since haven't given them enough evidence to form an opinion of me, then my words in an e-mail aren't going to help.

Lesson here? It's hard not to take sides. Think about what you're writing before you press "send." Since there are few emotional cues in an e-mail, you have to spell them out in writing -- say what the feelings are -- if you don't want to be misunderstood on an emotional topic.

So taking my own advice: my emotions in this: hurt and angry. Oh, that was obvious from what I wrote? Well sometimes you can communicate your emotions effectively in writing.

Travis McGee, the philosopher

I love this passage from Pale Gray for Guilt by John T. MacDonald

"So they sat, holding hands, and Jan fell asleep.

Puss gave me a sleepy wink and then she was gone

too. I looked out of the jet at December gray, at

cloud towers reaching up toward us. Tush was gone,

and too many others were gone, and I sought chill

comfort in an analogy of death that has been with

me for years. It doesn't explain or justify. It just

seems to remind me how things are.

Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down

between rocky walls: There is a long, shallow bar of

sand and gravel that runs right down the middle of

the river. It is under water. You are born and you

have to stand on that narrow, submerged bar, where

everyone stands. The ones born before you, the ones

older than you, are upriver from you. The younger

ones stand braced on the bar downriver. And the

whole long bar is slowly moving down that river of

time, washing away at the upstream end and building

up downstream.

Your time, the time of all your contemporaries,

schoolmates, your loves and your adversaries, is that

part of the shifting bar on which you stand. And it is

crowded at first. You can see ·the way it thins out,

upstream from you. The old ones are washed away

and their bodies go swiftly by, like logs in the current.

Downstream where the younger ones stand

thick, you can see them flounder, lose footing, wash

away. Always there is more room where you stand,

but always the swift water grows deeper, and you

feel the shift of the sand and the gravel under your

feet as the river wears it away. Someone looking for

a safer place can nudge you off balance, and you are

gone. Someone who has stood beside you for a long

time gives a forlorn cry and you reach to catch their

hand, but the fingertips slide away and they are

gone. There are the sounds in the rocky gorge, the

roar of the water, the shifting, gritty sound of sand

and gravel underfoot, the forlorn cries of despair as

the nearby ones, and the ones upstream, are taken

by the current. Some old ones who stand on a good

place, well braced, understanding currllnts and balance,

last a long time. A Churchill, fat cigar atilt,

sourly amused at his own endurance and, in the

end, indifferent to rivers and the rage of waters. Far

downstream from you are the thin, startled cries of

the ones who never got planted, never got set, never

quite understood the message of the torrent.

Tush was gone, and our part of the bar was emptier,

and the jet raced from the sunset behind us to

the night ahead, and beside me slept the two

women, hand in hand, their lashes laying against the

high flesh of their cheeks with a heartbreaking precision,

a childish surrender, an inexpressible vulnerability."

What did YOU do New Year's Eve?

I spent New Year's Eve in the hospital with just one thing on my mind.

You have to understand that I had never been a patient in a hospital in my life (since being born). So when I went in to Brackenridge Hospital on December 28th for surgery on my spine, I was nervous. After suffering with lower back pain for a few years and having tried all the non-surgical options, I sought the advice of a neurosurgeon. He showed me that the condition of the L4-L5 disk was degenerating and would continue to do so. It could not be repaired, it needed to be removed and replaced with some material that would harden and fuse the L4 and L5 vertebrae together. This surgery is typically now done from the front on the body, involving the services of a vascular surgeon to make the opening and move the blood vessels away from the spine so the neurosurgeon can do the repair to the spine.

My surgery was scheduled for noon on the 28th. Janis and I arrived at the hospital as requested at 9 AM. There was mostly waiting before I was wheeled to the pre-op room. This is where you meet the anesthesiologist, get an IV started, and so on. When it was time to go I got a shot of something in the IV that took effect before we were 10 feet out of the pre-op room and I didn't remember a thing until I woke up in my room. I must have awakened a bit in the recovery room, but I don't remember it.

Janis stayed with me in the room Friday night -- besides that I don't remember much until Saturday morning. That's when PT came in to get me out of bed. I had no idea it was going to hurt THAT much to go from lying to sitting the first time. But that was the only time I experienced any serious pain in the hospital. We walked about 20 feet down the corridor -- I felt nauseated and weak. We went back. Lying back down wasn't as bad as getting up! I got up again Saturday afternoon with much less discomfort -- and walked farther.

To be released from the hospital I had to do several things. First, I had to show I could get out of bed by myself -- I did this on Monday. Second, I had to be able to get by on oral pain medications -- Sunday or Monday this happened. Third, had to get the catheter out -- Sunday, I think. The fourth and final sign of progress was to pass gas. This is medically necessary to show that the bowels are functioning following the surgery. By Monday evening, this still had not happened, though there were rumblings.

I was alone in the room on New Year's Eve--Monday night. I may have had the TV on. I don't remember. Then at 8:40 PM it happened -- the fourth sign! I immediately called Janis with the good news! She understood! I then called the nurses station and asked them to put this event into my chart. The next day, New Year's Day, 2008, I would be released to go home.

Perhaps there will be a new New Year's Eve tradition at Cook Acres!?!

New Life

We planned our vacation to Virginia at the wrong time. Janis anticipated the birth of Storm's foal for so long, and when we planned to be gone the week of May 21st, we didn't actually think about the fact that this was at the same time as Storm's due date. But when the vet indicated that probably she would be late, Janis relaxed a little.

We flew out on Sunday, the 20th. On Monday, while at a restaurant in Harrisonburg, VA, Janis received a call from Kelsey that Storm was in labor. The foal was born shortly thereafter. All is well. Except that every time the phone rings, Janis jumps, and the first words out of her mouth are "Is everything OK?"

So far, everything is great!