Final Preparation

Friday, September 29th, 2017

Finals week is coming, and that means one thing: it's time to get together, make some food, sing a song, and get studying. I brought eggs and syrup, and everybody else brought everything else. We all set to work making our various contributions: Sarah cracked some eggs for scrambling, Caleb sliced some apples to... I don't know what they call it but they tasted really good when he was done, and they reminded me of the way my great-grandma used to make apples for breakfast. I think Lucy and Brooke set the table whilst Anna prepared the crepe batter. After that I don't remember what everybody else did because I started frying up some bacon. It all smelt wonderful, and we listened to music that various people said, "Oh, we have to listen to this song!" And so that's how we made our playlist. Brooke fried crepes, and after I was done with the bacon Sarah threw her eggs on. Being the person who I am, I couldn't help but tell her how it was done. "See this little chunk of egg here? (I scooped up a little sliver out of the pool of soupy scrambled mostly still uncooked eggs) You need to strain it out and set it on a plate. It's done cooking."
"What, no! That's crazy!" Sarah cried out.
"No no no, I'm serious! This is how it's done!"
Sarah would have none of it, and began to wrestle the spatula out of my hand. "I've got twenty-one years of experience cooking eggs, which is more than you've got, so let me do it!"
Well, she had a point. Classic older sibling move. Not that she's my sibling, but she is a sibling. At any rate, the eggs got cooked and she told me to get the cheese out of the fridgerator. After grabbing it, I threw it to her, planning on... well I forgot what I was planning, but that's besides the point. Due to the bag not being zipped properly, (*cough* Sarah *cough*) (It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it had been thrown through the air, I can assure you.) it came open and threw cheese all over the kitchen beneath it's flight trajectory. Cheese was all over the place. Very sad, yet very funny. I started gathering the floored cheese while Sarah put some unspilled cheese in with the eggs. By the time she was finished and put the bag away, I brought the cheese I'd picked up over to the pan, saying, "Ok, I salvaged the cheese. Lemme put it in right here..."
"What, NO!" shouted Sarah. "What are you thinking!?"
I laughed, we all laughed, and the cheese was thrown into the abyss of Tartarus.

Once all the food was cooked up we sat down, prayed, then preyed on the food. It was amazingly good, with whup cream, fancy apples, apple cider, crepes, eggs, and bacon. Lots of bacon. We talked, ate, smiled, and listened to more songs. By and by though, it was around nine o'clock. So we cleaned up all the dishes, the kitchen, and whatnot, then prepared for the climax of the evening: our Taylor Swift song. Every quarter when we get together before finals, we sing a Swift song, usually from her repertoire of good ones, or at least decent ones. This time, however, we were going to sing Look What You Made Me Do. The only version I had seen up to this point was one done by an Asian girl plucking strings on a... I'm not sure what you call it. A thing. It sounded hilarious. From the lyrics I heard from this version I could tell it wasn't that great a song, and most everybody's comments were to that effect anyways. At any rate, this was the song we were going to sing. We set up the phone with the camera, and two others for lyrics and/or chords, and off we went. It was hi-larious. Our vocal skills were off the charts, which direction I'll let you decide. But we had it all: epic dimmed lights at the end and beginning, (that was Brooke's idea) a dramatic solo (courtesy of Caleb), and lots of bopping, sitting still dancing, and strange hand motions that supposedly have some meaning or other. What else could you want?

After this was over, we headed downstairs to the basement where Brooke and Anna and Sarah's main area was, (we were at their house) and we got to work. Between the talking, laughing, and general goodness, I managed to get a good chunk of my Loot dialogue done, which was nice. For the first part, Anna was in her room taking a Greek final online. At some point though, Lucy went over to her to see how it was going. A little after that she came back, and then a lil after that Anna yelped out, "BROOKE! There's a spider! Help me!!"
"Alright, I'll be right over!" She got up to run to Anna's assistance.
Caleb joked, "Now it's going to be a real big spider and Brooke will call for Leaf to come kill it."
We laughed. Caleb must've been a prophet or else Brooke must've overheard, because not a second later she cried out, "Aghh! LEAF! It's big! Come kill it!"
I was up and over there in a jiffy, and Brooke and Anna were out in half a jiffy.
"It's behind that box!" cautioned Anna.
I moved said box. Sure enough, there was the spider, and he was definitely considerable in size.
"Could you give me something to squash it?"
Anna handed Lucy's shoe, which was alright because Lucy didn't see it.
SQUASH. Scrape. Wipe off, and "Eewww!" from the girls. Victory. And Lucy never knew we used her shoe. Heh heh.

We continued to work, and then Caleb invited Benjamin over, so he came by too. He also brought a twenty ounce can of redbull, which sparked a hilarious conversation all about it. Then Lucy had to go, so she hugged everybody and said goodbye, because it'd be two weeks before she got back since she was heading home in early the next morning. I drove her home and then went back to everybody else. At some point Sarah had cracked open the pita chip jar, and now a thought came across my mind. "Brooke, do yall still have that humus?"
"Umm, lemme see."
She walked over to the fridge, looked, then pulled it out. Then she struck a unique pose, with arms high in the air as she tried to make it as epic as possible while extending the humus out to me. I approached and did an equally baffling obscure series of contortions before finally grabbing it from her hands.
"Heh, that was random. Not sure why we did that."
"Not sure either. Hahaha."
I then returned to my seat at the coffee table and she to her spot on the couch, and I proceeded to eat the pita chips with the humus. Which, by the way, is really good and you should try it some time. After a good spell with more writing and so forth, Benjamin decided he, too, wanted some pita. He came over, grabbed some chips, then dipped it into the humus. But then he caught a woof of it.
"Whew, that is foul! This humus' best by date was a week ago!"
"No no, it's still good!" I pleaded, "It's just not at it's best right now. That doesn't mean it's bad."
"Really Leaf!? Haha, this is still bad." Sadly, he threw it away. "I'm just wondering, how did you not notice it was bad? You looked pretty happy munching on it for the last, what, hour?" He laughed. They laughed. I laughed.
"It tasted fine to me!"
"Well hopefully you won't get sick off it, or experience any other negative effects."

Later, at some ungodly time of night, we all departed, each to his own home, and went to sleep. That was quite the fun evening, and, thus refreshed, we say to finals week, "Bring it on!"

I Love Pain

September 28th, 2017

Pain is good. Without it we'd hurt ourselves horrifically all the time. You wouldn't notice getting your hand burnt from that hot stove, or ever learn that perhaps you should be more careful when running around junk piles barefoot where there are nails in bounds of abundance. Not only pain, but trials, hard times, and difficulties are also good. They teach us. They shape us. They make us who we are. Why are you so happy after completing a long footrace, or finishing a hard day of work, or turning in an almost late paper assignment? Because hardship made it valuable, and turned it into a thing worth striving for.

Very few people like winning just for the sake of winning. I doubt Kasparov would take much joy in beating a ten-year-old in a game of chess. No, we want it difficult, close. We want to fight a worthy opponent, one who is strong, tough, and formidable. We want it to be really close, a tough battle, one in which we barely obtain victory. This is what makes it fun. If you've ever been to a basketball game, or any sporting event really, when is the crowd more involved in the game, more on the edge of their seats, hoping against hope their team will make it? Near the end, when the clock is ticking down and it's still unclear who'll be victorious. If it weren't difficult to win, there'd be no joy in watching.

One of my favorite Herodotus quotes is, "Soft places tend to produce soft men." How true. Show me a man who's had everything he's ever wanted from birth, who's never worked a day in his life and has never known pain, and I will show you a boy with a doctorate in whineology who possesses not an ounce of mental or physical strength. Fortitude? He doesn't know what that means. We see this over and over again throughout history: a leader comes to power, unites a people, forges a kingdom through toil, sweat and tears, and carves out a slice of peace for his realm. Then he dies, leaving all to his heir, the firstborn son. This guy never lifted a finger his whole life, and consequently he manages to throw away everything his father ever worked for in the blink of an eye. If there's anything left over by the time his son takes the throne, rest assured that'll be taken care of post haste. This is why poor farmboys fight courageously, save the day, rescue the maiden, and ride of into the fair moonlight.

Why should you eat plain, bland oatmeal everyday for breakfast and forgo deserts throughout the week? So that when you do eat an awesome meal, or a wonderful muffin, you appreciate it all the more. The sharp contrast between what you had before and what you have now make sit all that much better. Think of it like eating cheesecake. A slice of it is the most wonderful thing ever to grace your tongue on a cool summer evening. Now eat a second slice. And a third. Now a fourth. Taste just as good? Probably not. What you need to do is wait a couple hours between slices, maybe a day, and be sure to eat regular ole food. Then, when you come back to the cheesecake, it is fabulous again. Likewise, the bad times make the good times better.

Now, I want you to think about your friends for a second. Think about your closest ones, the ones you can tell anything and everything to, who are always there for you, and who you'd trust to the end. I'd be willing to bet yall didn't just bump into each other, go to each other's houses a couple times, watch a few movies, and then wake up one day with a friendship stronger than the chains that bind Prometheus to his fate. More likely than not yall became just plain ole friends at first, then had something go horribly wrong on a camping trip, or got lost in downtown Bucksnort, or had some other unplanned for hardship befall you. This trial forced you into a situation you'd never been in before, and you had to persevere to get through it together. At the end, when it was all said and done, you did it. And what's more, you found you now have a friend. Some of the best stories I've heard happened when something went wrong and you and those with you just had to deal with it. I mean, who can say they got lost in the desert, subsisted on a dozen boiled eggs and three grapefruit for the first day, slept overnight, freezing, around a tiny fire, then found a hermit out there randomly in the wilderness who guided you back to civilization? These types of stories can only come from turmoil, pain, and hardship. They may not be that fun while they're happening, but by golly aren't they your favorite stories to tell for decades to come! Without hardship, we'd have none of this. But we do. We all have had troubles, sorrows, heartbreak. We all have stories to tell. What's yours?

Things I Don't Understand

September 27th, 2017

Some things will just never make sense to. No matter how many times people explain it to me or how much I attempt to discover it for myself, it just never works. Here are a few questions that return to me every now and again.

1. Why do so many people push the glass of a door to open it instead of using the handle?
2. Why are there so many hair pins all over the place? If they fall out so easily, why use them?
3. Why does it take people a solid six seconds to begin accelerating when the light turns green?
4. Where do dust bunnies come from? I mean, seriously. I want a time-lapse video.
5. Why are people so redundant? For example, take the phrases 'added bonus', 'free gift', 'lying                  politician', etc. Each one is a nimiety and a pleonasm!
6. Who thought it was a good idea to sell boiled eggs pre-shelled by the half dozen? Who buys these?
7. Why don't people notice when you skip a number while listing things? Why do they doubt                   themselves and double-check just to make sure?
9. Why does any sentence sound like a question if you raise your voice to a higher pitch at the end?
10. Why do you think of the perfect comeback just a minute too late to use it?
11. Why when we see somebody about to throw something away do we gasp in horror and take it for       ourselves so it won't be wasted and then let it sit on a shelf for five years before throwing it away?
12. Why can't I ever get the dollars I spent AND the gallons I bought to land perfectly on whole               numbers at the gas station?
13. How do people lose their keys, wallets, and phones? How hard can it be to keep up with a couple       very valuable objects?
14. Who ever thought high heels were fashionable, or a good idea for anybody to wear? Aren't they           just glorified tripping hazards?
15. Why can't you drink alcohol until you're twenty-one but you can go get yourself killed fighting in       the army at eighteen?
16. What's up with those 'potato mashers' that only have a grid design with tiny little holes that                  nothing could possibly ever fit through?
17. Quare non decet mihi narrare fabulas de furis qui canes surripiunt atque edunt?
18. Where do all the scratches and gouges on my arms come from? Do I get attacked every night by         ravenous feral cat and wake up with no memory of it?
19. Why do we always forget the bestest thing we had planned to say and never remember it?

Escalators

January 2017

Well, I made it I guess. I was excited to be back in Idaho. I guess. Well, at least I thought I should be excited. It's the thought that counts, right? Guess I proved that saying wrong because I still had nothing. I suppose that's to be expected though, just getting back from Christmas break and all, and knowing with certainty that you're in for a bumpy third quarter because of... stuff. At any rate, I wasn't exactly hopping to go back. Hoping, however, to still catch my carpool in time, I kept walking toward the baggage claim instead of slumping down at the nearest pillar and drowning myself in self-pity, self-inflicted misery, and general downcast spirits, as tempting as that was. And then, there they were. Christy and Rachel and her sister Emily were by a bench waiting for the baggage carousel to reanimate. "Hey Leaf!" they cried out. Hugs were given and I was introduced to Emily, who heretofore remained unknown to me. They chatted happily and I joined in here and there, still holding onto my irrational melancholy. But then we got tired of standing around, and so, since it was her baggage anyways, Emily stayed behind and waited whilst the rest of us walked off towards... somewhere. We weren't quite sure. Along the way we ran into a pair of escalators, one going up and the other, as you might not have guessed, going down. We decided to ascend, and descend, and go around again. All at once, a lightbulb was lit above Christy's head. "I know! We should go to the other escalators at the end of the hallway where nobody's around and play on them! That's what I was doing before yall got here, and it was so fun!" I was instantly captured by her enthusiasm and swept away by our glorious plans for killing time, and at the same time all thoughts of ugh-why-am-I-here, and ugh-I-want-to-be-sad-for-no-reason were immediately dispersed and left, lying at the floor of a bottomless chasm filled with water in a stunning ash heap of dry dust, completely forgotten for the foreseeable eternity.
Rachel, ahem, was less than amused. "Are you guys really gonna do this? Ughh!"
Christy and I chanted back, "YES YES YES! We're gonna do it and it's gonna be great! You have to come with us! At least watch!"
"Aghh, fine!"
"Hooray!"
With the greatest of jubilation and a little bit of pulling and dragging and further persuading, we set off. Soon enough, we arrived. We ran up the down escalators and down the up ones, we laughed as we did the most ridiculous things and then we did even funnier things too. At last Rachel, encouraged by the utter lack of random strangers, and tempted horribly by our immense pleasure at our game, joined in. And then, o what fun we had! Three is better than two, and by golly did we prove it! We imitated statues while riding up and down, attempted splits, raced, jumped, and just generally had a good time. And we laughed.

But then, the horror. A dry voice came over the airport intercom, "Please do not play on the escalators. Please use them only for their intended purpose. Thank you." We all looked at each other with that deer in the headlights look and promptly descended and walked back toward the baggage claim. Evidently somebody had, er, noticed us. Awkward. Rachel was mortified. Christy and I chuckled about it to ourselves. And then, we made it to the baggage carousel. Emily came up to us, "That was you wasn't it!" Our sheepish grins betrayed the truth as she continued to express her shock and awe that we would do such a thing to the extent that they had to tell us to stop using the intercom for the whole entire airport. We didn't feel any remorse, though there may have been that 'guilt' that a dog has when he eats food he wasn't supposed to eat. It's not that we were sad we'd played on the escalators, but more of that we were sad we got caught. At any rate, we hoisted our bags upon our shoulders and made off for the car. We may or may not have been cackling about our adventure all along the way. The midnightish sky was foreboding, dark, and silent, just about the opposite of all our hearts right then. The soft snow slid down the sky and sat, smiling, at our feet.

Pancake Party

Sunday, September 24th, 2017

I opened the door to my apartment and stepped inside. It was dark and gloomy inside, the curtains stayed drawn and the air invited smelled just so, as if to say, "Sit down and stay a while, take a nap." I trudged in, threw my pack to the floor, then stepped out on the back patio. Just then Luke, Laura, and Sarah betrayed their presence with their voices as they walked into the apartment complex's main hallway. People! As soon as the patio gate swung open, Luke said, "And here's the man himself!"

Laura: "Are you still thinking about having a pancake party tonight?"

Ah, I had almost forgotten! "Oh, yes! Let's shoot for eight."

"Alrighty, see ya then! Is there anything I can bring?"

"Ooh, a cast iron pan would be nice so we can cook the pancakes faster."

"Cool, I bring that by when I come!"

With that Luke and I stepped into our apartment as Laura and Sarah went to theirs. We had about an hour to get the place cleaned up, so we started at it. A couple minutes in some of the guys from apartments three and six came by. We turned up the music, talked, and cleaned. Benjamin washed lots of dishes, Levi brought his laundry over so he could fold it and join in the pre-festivity festivities, and the others made the air resound with happiness and amiability. Soon enough it was eight and people started showing up. We left an open invitation to a bunch of people, and plenty came. Everybody loves a good pancake party, and they like my great grandma's recipe too. Soon enough pancakes were flipping off the pans and sliding down people's gizzards just as fast, landing comfortably in their stomachs. A little peanut butter, chocolate chips, bananas, butter and syrup adorned the flat fluffy bundles of goodness, and good old fashioned water washed it down. Conversation, laughter, and smiles abounded, mixing with that wonderful smell of pancakes fried on a bacon greased cast iron pan. Nothing is quite like that wonderful combination.

By and by I finished cooking and joined the happiness in the living room. Sitting down on the carpet, I found myself on the outside edge of a circle of sitters. Someone commented on my being on the fringe, to which I replied by scooting directly into the middle of the circle with a sloppy smirky grin on my face. I faced opposite Isaac (if I remember correctly) and attempted to start a variation of patty-cake with him. That went down in flames, and I soon after scooted back to a now open spot in the circle. Then I tried the same clapping game with Charli, and I taught her how to do it. As we got the hang of it we couldn't help but let smiles and laughter issue forth from our inner beings. Soon enough others wanted to learn, so Charli and I split up and taught them, and next thing you know half the room is playing this clapping game and seeing how fast they could go and how long. For the record, Elizabeth and I got the farthest, up to twenty-five. Then we started playing competitively, with pairs racing to fifteen and seeing who got there first. Charli and I won twice, and Luke and Christy won once.

After that we switched to a different clapping game that's group based, but that's too complicated to explain. After that we played ABCD, another hand game, and when you do the wrong letter, your hands get smacked. That's a lot of fun. After that we did a couple other need-nothing-but-yourself games until we sat down and started a hearty conversation touching upon the morality of following questionable orders as a public servant, praying to dead saints asking them to pray for you, and various other juicy topics. All in all a profitable exchange of thoughts. But alas, all things must come to an end, and around midnight everybody left. 

Pancake parties are really great, not just because you eat pancakes, but also because you get a bunch of people together for real fellowship. You don't all sit around silently watching a movie, (althoug that can be fun from time to time) but you actually interact with each other, furthering your friendships and forging new ones. As far as Sunday evenings go, this is one of my favorite ways to spend them, because it combines two things that I adore immensely: people and pancakes. What could possibly go wrong?

Squirrels

Friday, September 22nd, 2017

How could this be? I was cutting it close, about to be late! Throwing the backpack over my shoulder and rushing out the door, I hopped on my bicycle and rushed down 6th street. I got going over twenty miles an hour down the steep monstrosity and hit the greenlight at the bottom. Oh yeah! Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small brown fur ball running toward me. Turning my head, I saw that it was a cute little squirrel who was trying to make it across the street. He wasn't quite sure what to do and second-guessed himself and turned around back to the side of the street he'd come from, but immediately decided better and turned around again, determined to cross the street. Wrong choice. I saw him run straight for my front wheel, and a grin formed across my face in anticipation of my hopes being fulfilled. And then it happened! My left foot hit the squirrel with a solid thud as a hearty laugh bellowed forth from the depth of my being. This was joyous news! I've always wanted to run over a squirrel on my bicycle! Not that there's anything special about hitting squirrels in general, just more of the fact that I had done so in such an improbable way gave me joy. It really made my day.

Ground Or Floor?

Laying on the ground and floor is a great hobby of mine. Now, some may suppose that I was a little redundant right there by saying 'ground or floor'. Aren't those synonyms that mean the same thing? Yes, they are synonyms, but no, they most definitely are not the same. They are both generic terms, governing many specific types of that hard stuff that keeps you from falling in to the abyss. 'Ground' includes all those substances that are out of doors, and usually occur naturally. Examples would be grass, dirt, sand, rock, and generally any type of terrain you might encounter, with the notable exception of water masses. 'Floor', on the other hand, includes such substances that one would find indoors, such as carpet, wood, concrete, linoleum, and other such materials that one might run across in a building. Simple enough, right? Well, not so fast. Here the astute reader who is prone to question simple definitions may come up with some questions. What about pavement, roads, and sidewalk which are outdoor yet man-made? Would a road be considered floor or ground? Notice the fact that all the indoor floors are man-made is purely coincidental. What matters mostly is that it is ex fores, out of doors, and intended to be used thusly. You would never consider acting like you were in a building while in the middle of the street. Pavement and asphalt and other such things of like nature are assuredly ground.

Another question may be posed: What if we take wood flooring and place it outside for a porch, or use stone or brick for a patio? That would be considered floor. Why? Because it is put there for use other than the basic utility of a ground substance: specifically, as a sort of outdoor room so to speak, an extra living room, but without walls or roof (though in the case of the porch there may be a roof as well). What if we had a crude hut built with just plain ole dirt for the floor? What would you call the dirt? It's just like the dirt outside, but the only difference is it's covered by a structure. That is still just a floor. That's why we call it a dirt floor.

As you can see, it is the purpose of a substance that makes it either ground or floor. In general, floors are indoors while ground is outdoors, except with a few exceptions such as porches and certain patios. And that, my friend, is why you can say you enjoy laying on the ground and floor without being redundant.

That Hideous Thing

Thursday, September 21st, 2017

Several months ago my finger got smashed between a twelve inch steel pipe and a large wooden skid. Although I was wearing leather impact-resistant gloves, it still cracked my fingernail and caused some bleeding. And then, those words were spoken, predicting the future quite accurately: "That's gonna fall off in a couple months." Sure enough, they proved true, and today was the day. The nail had already been limping around half ripped off for some time, but now, with a finally tug and pull, I managed to yank it off. O what joy and satisfaction filled my heart! I was free! No longer would I have to worry about it causing me pain whenever I stuck it in my pocket to retrieve something, or when I bumped it and it got caught on something. Naturally, I wanted to show off my good fortune to everybody. Bobby was right there, so I showed him. He was like, "Yeah I saw you pulling it off." So then I showed it to Bradley, and he gazed in wonder at the sight of my now bare finger. After that I showed it to Christy and Charli, who grimaced at the sight but were interested in the tip of my finger where a nail should be but wasn't. After that I showed it to Lucy, who ran screaming and yelling to another part of the room. Apparently the sight didn't delight her that much. Brooke and Anna shared her opinion. Anna turned her back to me while saying, "I don't even know why we're friends Leaf!" Brooke was like, "Yeah that's kind of nasty." I liked the whole spectrum of responses to my show-and-tell. Definitely worth it. There's not many responses that would displease me actually, and I suppose that's part of what made it so funny: you never know whether they'll want to inspect your finger or run off crying into the wilderness at the sheer hideousness of it. Either way, I'll be laughing inside.

Who Could It Be?

Tuesday, September 19th, 2017

Laying on the carpet reading is one of the best feelings in the world, especially when it's a good book and you lose track of time. But then, all of a sudden, the front door cracked open a little bit and a figure dressed in black peeked through, and then suppressed laughter reached my ears along with the words, "Oh shoot!". More suppressed laughter. Yet the door remained open just a crack. Somebody was doing something, and I had no idea who it was. I spoke out, "Yes? Come in." Nothing. Now my curiosity was indeed piqued. Getting up, I approached the front door and gave it a tug. And who do you think was standing there? It totally shocked me, and I never would have expected it to be them. Two freshman, Danny and Bradley, were standing there chuckling to themselves as if they'd pulled a great prank. "Hey, what're yall up to?"
Danny spoke first, struggling through his laughter, "Hi Leaf! Is Luke home?"
"No, he's not here right now."
"Oh, we were going to bother him if he was here." (both laugh again)
Bradley piped in, "Yeah, we were just going to bother him for the fun of it."
Danny again, "But if he's not here that's alright. Sorry for bothering you." (still half laughing)
Both, "See you later Leaf!"
"Ok, see ya around!"
And with that I went back inside and took up reading once more, while they went to apartment three. What for? Who knows, maybe they were just making the rounds for their list of people to bother. Those two are the best, you're bound to have a good time hanging out with them.

And that is yet another great reason to live on 6th street. You never know who'll pop in next! I really love just having chance meetings like this and letting life just run its course and see what happens. There is a place for planning fun things with friends, but don't ignore the little things that happen right in front of your face, sometimes they're the best!

How To Defend Your Citadel 101

September 19th, 2017

There I was, innocently reading away, totally engrossed, hardly noticing the sun slowly declining in the sky. Being an overcast day, but not sure what exactly to do, it took once again to raining, imagining that now some other effect would be wrought then had previously. And it worked. A smile stole upon my face, hardly noticeable to me, almost as if I wasn't thinking about it. Rainy days always bring me great joy, and with the renewed vigor of the rainfall and the clear, fresh smell that ofttimes accompanies it, my spirits rose. It was right at this moment that I beat my pate and cried in dismay, "When will they ever learn? It always happens like this!" It was book eight of Herodotus, where a few straggling Athenians are defending the Acropolis against Xerxes and his countless host. They were holding out fine and starting to aggravate the King of the Persians, when all at once, they were captured and cut down. How, you ask? Well there this one side of the Acropolis that was so steep and arduous that it was thought that nobody could possibly climb it, and so not even one guard was posted there to keep watch. Then, surprise surprise, a bunch of Persians climbed it, opened the gates, and slew the remaining Athenians, cutting them down like hay before harvest. If I've read it once, I've read it a thousand times. Didn't this happen with the Palatine Hill when the Etruscans (if my memory fails me not) took over and the Romans snuck up the 'unclimbable' portion of the hill, where conveniently no guard was posted because nobody could possibly climb up there, and thus recaptured it securing a decisive victory? This happens all the time! Jotapata fell victim to this strategy even with the shrewd oversight of Josephus! Some city I forgot the name of also fell this way when one of Alexander the Great's men climbed the one unguarded spot that everybody thought was impervious to such attempts. Countless cities and fortresses, which otherwise would have held out against their besiegers, have fallen in this exact way. Yet nobody sees the pattern! And it's such a preventable problem too. I mean, all it would take is one guard with a rock and nobody would ever make it to the top! It's pretty simple: no matter what the situation, you ALWAYS need lookouts all around the perimeter of your walls so that nothing is overlooked.

But no, generals be like, "Okay men, man the walls! Don't let anybody over the top! I want lookouts posted everywhere so no sneak attacks can go unseen. But you know that one real rocky spot that's so high and steep that nobody ever climbs up? Don't post anybody there, and make sure none of the other guards is even within line of sight of this area. Nobody could possibly climb up here so it's not a problem. We need to conserve manpower, and this is a great way to do it! What's that you say? Nobody climbs up there because they have no reason to and it's easier to just go down through the main gates? Don't worry soldier,  the enemy won't exert themselves to such extremes, it's much easier to come through the front gate. What's that? We've repulsed them every time from the front gate and now they're trying to think of how to capture our fortress? Don't worry private, that portion of the cliff is unclimbable. Stop talking back! We know it's unclimbable because nobody ever climbs it! No we've never tried, why do that if you can just go down through the front gates!? Guards, take this man away, he's interrupting our meeting." I mean, seriously, are they really that naive or are they just really short of manpower that they can't afford one lookout? Seriously, they literally just need ONE warm body. And one rock. That's it. How hard can it be? Pretty difficult evidently. And then once they get overrun and they hear that one soldier climbed up that one unguarded part, they're all like, "No, impossible! We could never have foreseen that coming from a spot where no lookouts were posted and we didn't even bother patrolling and where nobody ever walks by because it's so out of the way and you can easily sneak up to a nearby gate and let the other soldiers in! Unforeseeable!"
Naw, say it isn't so!

If this brief discussion has intrigued you and you'd like to learn more about warfare, I'd recommend you read a short book by Sun Tzu entitled, "The Art of War". There's a lot of good stuff there about tactics and various strategies to employ, and it's a fabulous introduction to ancient warfare.

Do It Right

If you're going to do something, do it right. There I was, innocently eating my dinner, watching a youtube video titled, '5 Math Riddles That Will Blow Your Mind'. I was... less than enthralled. Most of them were really low quality, I hate to say riddles because that would be too high of praise to give them, so we'll just say, questions. One in particular was quite offensive. It asked that if 29-1=30, 9-1=10, and 14-1=15, then is it possible to prove that 11-1=10. I thought about this for a minute, but then concluded that, based on the previous 'riddles', it was probably a stupid answer. Sadly, I was right. The 'answer' was that if you wrote the equations in Roman Numerals it worked. They pointed out that XXIX-I=XXX, IX-I=X, and XIV-I=XV, so therefore, XI-I=X. The logic is severely flawed though, since they changed the definition of a well defined operation, namely, subtraction. For their purposes, it means 'take away the symbol'. But you can't just do that. Subtraction is a defined operation with an accepted operator sign to symbolize it: -  To make their 'riddle' work, they'd have to tell their audience that operator signs were subject to change. If you do that, however, you just destroy any pretext of having a sensible riddle. Some things you just don't mess with. As it stands, their 'riddle' is just plain silly. If you write the givens in Roman Numerals, there is still no way to show that the conclusion follows. Unless I'm missing something obvious, in which case by all means correct me, what they're trying to do makes zero sense. We'd all be better off if they didn't clutter the internet with their nonsense. If you're going to do something, do it right.

Slightly Incoherent

The early bird gets the worm. That's what they told me my whole life, and, for the most part, I believed them. Then again, I was always the one sitting around waiting for everybody else to show up. I was always that guy who'd merge way ahead of time and hoped that everybody else would get with the program and get in the right lane. This, though, was the turning point. Traffic patterns are concrete, something you see for yourself and observe what's better or worse. And it hit me: if everybody merged ahead of time (like you have to do in construction zones on the highway or something) and got in one lane before the cones started, traffic would be backed up way farther back then it had to be. Instead of turning a two-lane highway into a one-lane highway for a half mile, let's say, you're extending the distance of the one-lane portion even further. Won't that make it slower overall? Indubitably. That's why you should keep all traffic in two lanes for as long as possible before merging, so that way traffic runs smoother. Think of merging like a zipper: that's how it should go, suddenly all at once, not trying to get them all in line before their turn, throwing the whole thing off-balance.

Once I reached this conclusion, I looked around at the rest of my life to see where I could apply the same principle. Get there early? Nah, I'll get there on time, but not a minute before that. Oh, and then there's this priceless gem: knowing that my turn is coming up in a half mile but still merging into the other lane because there's a shorter lane at the light. Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Have to be somewhere in the morning? Set that alarm ten minutes before to optimize your sleep intake, and let the day worry about itself. I think that saying needs to be updated: The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

The Sweetest Thing

Tuesday, September 12th, 2017

Last night I wasn't feeling well. With a premonition that things would be worse in the morning, I emailed all my professors saying there was a chance that I wouldn't be able to make it to class due to sickness. This turned out to be a good plan, for the next morning, after a long fitful night of trying to sleep and hacking and coughing and the contents of my cranial cavity pounding on my skull trying to get out giving me a massive headache all night, I woke up and was like, "Nope! Not happening today!" and slumped back into bed. I felt even worse than I had before. Zero energy, head still hurting at what I imagine would be a migraine level, and the back of my throat scratching with every breath. I felt miserable.

Despite this, I still managed to get a little reading done and think up a paper topic, so I guess you could say it worked out alright. I tried at various times to take a nap, but to no avail. Time seemed like a distant memory, lost in Herodotus-length rabbit paths from which there was no foreseeable escape besides to wait it out and hope for the best. It was a long lonesome day with hardly anybody around, except Froh was in and out a few times before classes. During one such time upon which he was present, in reply to my saying that I was tired of being sick, he said, "Well Socrates would have you know that..." continuing on to say in so many well chosen words, that basically if I would only not be swayed by the appearance of pain there would be no need to endure it, and even if it was real, my reaction to it was the only thing making me suffer. He chose all the perfect words, never pausing to think up what he was going to say next, just letting it all pour off his tongue like water from a fall. It was perfectly hilarious. My laughter was only put in check by a coughing fit and the need to blow my nose.

Several hours later, I got a text from Lucy asking if they could drop by and give me some health stuff to get better. Fifteen minutes later she and Brooke and Anna showed up, and upon opening the door exclaimed in voices of pure genuine pity, "Oh Leaf, you look so horrible!" "Your eyes are bloodshot!" "I'm so sorry!" I smiled, glad that they had come to visit me and bring me stuff to get well again, and shuffled back to the chair I'd been sitting in as Lucy went straight for the kitchen and started boiling water for tea. Then she noticed the bag of sugar on the table and said sternly, "Leaf, why is there sugar on the table? You shouldn't be eating sugar when you're sick! This shouldn't even be out!"

"Well I put some on my rice this morning..."

"You had rice!?" Lucy shuddered. "What else have you been eating?"

"Well rice for breakfast and mashed potatoes for lunch and..."

"Mashed potatoes!?! You can't be eating that when you're sick!"

"Well I..."

"Here is some soup we brought. Make sure to heat it up in a saucepan. Don't eat anymore potatoes!" With that she went back to slicing lemon and preparing tea. And then, a minute later, no longer stern, but happy and chirpy, "Leaf! Here is your tea. Drink it when it cools down a bit and then..."

Here Brooke interjected, "That tea looks kinda gross with all the big lemon pulp floating around."

Lucy stopped immediately and fixed her with a steely glare so intense that..

Brooke responded with her signature half laughing/joking half apologetic voice, "Alright, I'm sorry!"

And Lucy picked right back up where she was at, cheery as ever, with, "and then you'll drink this other tea right here, and if it's too bitter you can add some honey. Then after you're through with both of those, take this vitamin C packet and dissolve it in some water and drink that too. And when you get hungry be sure to heat up that soup or eat a muffin, which are right over here."

And Anna chimed in, "I like your shirt!" (It had a picture of a stone weeping angel statue with the words, "RUN LIKE YOU BLINKED" across the front. Doctor Who fans will relate.)

With that and a few other pleasantries exchanged and as hearty a thanks as my failing voice and strength would allow was given, they took their leave and went on their way.

Soon after I discovered that I now had another tea to add to my long list of favorites, which now reads: oolong, spice dragon red chai, and lemon tea. It was superb, and made my throat feel much better after drinking. I then drank the other tea, which, in fact, had been imported from Taiwan, while heating up some of the soup. A couple minutes later I could almost feel myself getting better with every bite. Not quite, but almost. And then later I drank vitamin C water while reading and eating a muffin. Muffins are the best. If you ever want to make me really happy, muffins are the way to go. Just saying.

The next day I felt considerably better. Not quite one hundred percent, but well on the way to recovery. And how could I not after all that tea, vitamins, and food had been administered? Ever shall I be grateful for all the wonderful friends in my life.

Sunday Dancing

Sunday, September 10th, 2017

I was in a lull. Just laying on the floor watching random youtube videos and not getting much of anything done. I don't usually have much time to waste doing nothing by myself, but this was Sunday, and, by some chance stroke of happenings, I hadn't any plans between church letting out and three o'clock, and so the day found me withering away doing absolutely nothing. Which is nice from time to time. At any rate, I looked up, or down rather, at the time display of my computer and realized it was two forty. Eh, close enough. Jumping up, grabbing my shoes in case in I'd need them, and rushing out the door to my truck was a matter of seconds, and had you been there you would have seen my windows rolled down, the radio cranked up, and my bobbing head as I made a right-hand turn onto sixth street.

Not two minutes later and I was there. Not my final destination, but just a quick little jaunt where I picked up Jex, her leash, lead, and water bowl, and was then back on the road. We cruised on over to the edge of town, her head poked out the window, enjoying all the sights and smells along the way, and pulled in to a place where a line of cars was already parked and people were milling around while others danced to the skippy music that poured out of the speakers. Jex and I hopped out and I tied her to a railing in such a way that she could still reach the big bay door that let in the cool summer breeze and sit right on the edge of where everything was happening. I spent the first couple minutes telling everybody who came over to pet her what her name was, that no it's not Jacks but Jex, (Juliet, Echo, X-ray!) how old she was, and answering various other questions people always ask when they first meet your dog. By and by almost everybody went back inside, except three people behind me talking about something or other and Charli, who was still petting Jex. The two of us sat on the thick green grass talking about various things that came up while still petting Jex, who was quite happy to stay where she was at.

And then three o'clock rolled around, Patrick opened us up with prayer, and then the two hours of Sunday dancing started in earnest. We did all sorts of different types, East Coast, Virginia Reel, Irish Washerwoman, Fox and the Hunter, and Polka to name a few. There's just enough time between dances to go down the hallway and hastily slurp some water out of the fountain there before returning to the rectangular concrete floored open space. You might think about sitting out on one or two to regain your breath, for they can be quite exhausting, especially back to back. And did I mention the Posties Jig? That's probably my favorite one, involving lots of quick skipping, spinning around, and a general fast-pace. The only thing that makes it difficult is you need exactly eight people, so if you're in the last group to form and there's not eight, you'll have to drag some more people out to the floor or else just give it up.

And, by and by, the two hours were spent and we finished dancing, not to start again until next Sunday. And that's about it. More stuff did happen that day, but I won't tell you how a bunch of us drove down to Winco, bought a couple gallons of icecream, and consumed unspecified quantities of it at the 6th street apartments, or about how we had a couple guys over for dinner and talked till the sun ran down and the moon up. No, that would be far too tedious to mention, so I'll just leave it right here, with all of us heading back to our respective vehicles at the end of another fine Sunday afternoon of dancing.

Pancakes

Saturday, September 9th, 2017

There weren't many people left, and so at long last I decided to take my leave as well. I'd already told Wesley that'd I'd take him back to his house, so the two of us hopped in my truck and started off. I wasn't paying a ton of attention while on our way out of the grass parking lot, when all of a sudden I hit a largeish group of people with my truck's headlights. Now that I could see them I hollered one of my greetings out the window, "A o!". And then Luke hollered back, "Leaf, wait up a sec!" as he dashed over to us. "Have you got some room for a couple of us to ride?" "Yeah sure, jump on in!" And so he and Caleb (the freshman) hopped in the back, and then Laura and Sarah T followed soon after and hopped in the back too. I thought that was it, but then Luke asked if I had two empty seats in the cab, I replied affirmatively, and then Kat and Sarah E got in too. Well I'll be! Here I thought it was going to be just Wesley and I, but now we had a truck-full! Funny how that happens. The only thing I wonder is how in the world they were planning to get back to 6th street in the first place, and why they were walking to the parking lot, since none of them had any cars. One can only guess. At any rate, we were off.

After dropping Wesley off at his place, the rest of us went back to 6th street where they had all planned to have a movie night. What movie was yet to be figured out, but that wasn't a big deal. We all piled into the living room of Laura's apartment and the conjecture convened to decide the movie. Then someone mentioned being hungry and how they'd like something to eat, and an idea flew into my funnel. "If I made pancakes, would anybody eat them?" Several people instantly declared that was a fine idea and they'd love it, so we burst into action. Luke and I ran over to our apartment and grabbed all the ingredients and supplies we'd need and then hurried on back, at which point I threw it all in a big bowl and started frying up pancakes. Luke tossed the butter on and handed them out to everybody while we watched the Scarlet Pimpernel, and it was perfect. Pancakes at night are amazing, and everybody loved them.

Spontaneity is one of my favorite things, especially when it involves a lot of friends. I had no plans at all for that evening, but then ended up driving a bunch of people to 6th street, got invited to join in the movie night, made a bunch of pancakes, and hung out with friends. It was wonderful. How better to spend your Friday night? I am all for doing things at the flip of a switch and just letting life happen. You can't plan out your entire life, and you never know what tomorrow holds. Heh, you never know what today holds. Make the best of what happens, and don't get too hung up on all the details. And that's why you should always keep a well-stocked pantry.

How Should We Deal With Death?

            Life is good. The world shouts this from the rooftops in feel-good commercials almost daily, and uses this catchy slogan to encourage us to spend time and money doing fun things. When it comes to death though, we hear no fancy phrases like “Death is bad.” Everybody is oddly quiet when it comes to the topic of death, and even many Christians do their best to avoid the subject, or just quickly gloss it over. This is quite a shame, for Christians should have plenty to say about death. N. T. Wright wrote on this issue, arguing that, “What we say about death and resurrection gives shape and color to everything else.”[1] To ignore the subject of death is to downplay the significance of Christ’s resurrection by signaling to those around us that, ultimately, we’re in the same boat as them when it comes to death. Having a right notion of death and how to deal with it is a wonderful way to show the masses an alternative to the prevailing culture surrounding death, and by doing so we will be living a more faithful Christian life. How should we as Christians approach changing the common conceptions of death? For starters, we need to know some of the commonly held views of death, and see if any of them hold water. If not, we’ll need to formulate our own position concerning death, and then put it into practice.

            There are three common viewpoints of death, each of which we’ll be looking at in more detail. The first, held by many non-christians in all walks of life, is the belief that death is simply bad and there’s nothing we can do about it. The second, supported by many Christians across the board, believes that death isn’t actually that bad, but is simply the vehicle that brings us to our final resting place in heaven. The final position, put forth mainly by atheists and humanists, states that death is neither good nor bad, but simply the end of existence.

            The first perspective is fairly straightforward: death is something painful, both for those who die and those who are left behind, so therefore we should try to ignore it and just go about our business. Ignorance is bliss, so they try to suppress the truth and pretend that everything is just dandy. Life is good, death is bad, and that’s an end to it. When we die it’s all over, so we may as well party it up while we’re still breathing. How do they deal with the death of grandparent, a friend, a child? They don’t. They combat sorrow by trying their best to just forget about the whole thing and drown it in pleasures. Sometimes they simply can’t handle it and fall into a deep pit of depression. This way of thinking leaves one hopeless, because there is no way to stop the incessant all-powerful march of death. All whom death consumes are gone forever, and there is no way to make things right again.

            The second path of thought holds that death isn’t a bad thing at all. It is simply an inconvenience for those left behind, who must overcome their misplaced sorrow to realize that everything is just fine. Nobody ever says that anybody ‘dies’, because they believe in using phrases such as ‘pass away’, ‘move on’, or some other euphemism instead of ‘die’. The person who just passed is in heaven now, holders of this view will say, so there is no reason to be sad at all. You’ll know you’re spiritually mature if you understand this fact, don’t cry, and feel happy for your past loved ones. In this line of thinking, there is no room for grief.

            The final common view believes death is simply a part of life, something that will inevitably happen at some point. We shouldn’t worry, they say, because we will simply cease to exist and that’ll be the end of it. Our bodies will decompose and our atoms will become part of the rest of the world. Some will even go so far as to say that death is what makes life good. Stephen Fry, narrating a video for the British Humanist Association, said, “Think about reading a good book or eating a delicious cake. These may be great pleasures, but one of the things that makes them pleasures is that they come to an end.”[2] He goes on to reason that death is necessary, and is what gives life purpose. Therefore, he reasons, we should try to live our life with intention, doing our best to accomplish the most amount of good. Here, death is elevated to a position of ultimate good, the driving force behind getting things done and living a fulfilling life. This mode of thinking leaves God entirely out of the picture, and trivializes the negative effects of death. None of these three views bring us to a proper understanding of death though. Each is off kilter, and so we need an alternative, one that will give us clear way to live and that will actually make a difference in our lives for the better.

First off, we need to understand that death is unnatural. When God first made the world, there was no death, but by man’s sin death entered into the world and has held mankind in its grip ever since. Not only is death unnatural, but it is also an enemy of God. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 says, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”[3] If death is an enemy, why treat it simply as a ‘moving on’? If we focus only on that one aspect, we leave behind the reality that something is not right: our relative should not be dead. Death is painful, bad, and unavoidable. Instead of bottling up our grief or distracting ourselves with pleasure though, Christians should acknowledge the fact and allow ourselves to cry and mourn for our loss. Jesus himself wept; it’s not an unchristian emotion. It is perfectly fine to be sad that they’re gone. There is most definitely, as Ecclesiastes 3:4 says, “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” As this verse implies, though, we won’t always be weeping.

There is hope for the future, based on Christ’s death and resurrection, and the promise of our future bodily resurrection. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 reads, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” We know death is not the end and that we’ll see them again.

Simply having all this knowledge won’t actually change anything in the world at large. There is something missing. Writing about shaping culture, Andy Crouch says, “Is it really true that simply perceiving the radical comprehensiveness of the Christian worldview would “transform the world”? Or is there a middle step that is being skipped over all too lightly?”[4] Crouch goes on to say that there is something missing: application. There are plenty of writers who claim that the heart of transforming culture lies in practical application, yet, as Crouch explains, “The emphasis always somehow stays on perception and vision, on thinking, on analysis.”[5] Simply coming to a better understanding of death won’t change things much at all. If we truly desire to make a difference in the way our culture views and reacts to death, we Christians should apply our beliefs to how we live and interact with this world.

How shall we then live? When someone you know dies, don’t sugarcoat it to try and make yourself feel better. They didn’t ‘pass away’ or ‘move on’, they died. This isn’t being callous, it’s calling death what it is and not diminishing the fact that it’s horrible. It’s ok to cry. Take some time to mourn. Melvin Tinker aptly said, “Tears are still shed. Grief is no less profound, but there is no grim despair, instead there is that quiet reassurance that the best is yet to be.”[6] Take some time to remember the good life you’ve had with them, and then, when the time is right, move on. Don’t live in the past, work in the present. Take joy in creation. Be thankful for the wonderful life God has given you. We shouldn’t be moping around feeling sad all the time, or twiddle our thumbs waiting for our turn to go to heaven. Far from it! We should work hard for the advancement of God’s kingdom, joyfully awaiting the day when death dies and sin is no more. When all things are put under His feet we shall say, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”[7]

Bibliography

Crouch, Andy, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,

2008.

Tinker, Melvin, “Does the Christian View of Death Need Reviving?” Accessed April 15, 2017.

http://churchsociety.org/docs/churchman/107/Cman_107_3_Tinker.pdf.

Wright, N.T., Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church,

New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008.

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1. N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pg. 25.

2. British Humanist Association, “’What should we think about death?’ Narrated by Stephen Fry – That’s Humanism!”, accessed April 17, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR7e0fmfXGw.

            3. 1 Cor. 15:25-26 (ESV).

4. Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), pg. 62.

 5. Ibid.

 6. Melvin Tinker, “Does the Christian View of Death Need Reviving?”, accessed April 15, 2017,

http://churchsociety.org/docs/churchman/107/Cman_107_3_Tinker.pdf.

 7. 1 Cor. 15:55.

Is Lying Ever Justified?

It’s pretty safe to say that we have all sinned by lying before. When was the last time you lied, though, and did not sin? Is there even such an occasion? An example commonly procured to show a situation like that is this: you’re hiding Jews and the Nazis knock on your door asking if you are hiding Jews. Do you lie and save them, or do you tell the truth and have them taken? In this scenario, I think most of us would agree that lying is by far the best option available. Yet how can ‘sinning’ via lying be a just decision? It seems very unlikely that sinning is ever necessary, so we need to redefine ‘lying’ to include only those times when it is indeed a sin. Now how about a less extreme example, say, a parent who tells little Johnny that Fido is living out on a farm where he can be free, when in reality Fido has just died? This isn’t nearly as life-altering as the previous example, but there are some similarities. In both situations, there are two options, neither of which seem particularly good, but it is necessary to choose one. Johnny’s parents are torn between two evils: should they break down and tell the truth, which they know will break little Johnny’s heart, or do they rather tell an untruth about Fido to save Johnny the heartache? Now there are two tasks before us: we need to redefine lying to only include those times when it is a sin, and then we need to answer the question: Is it ever right for parents to tell an untruth to their children, and if so, when?

Let’s start with the ninth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”[1] Some will mistakenly translate this as ‘Thou shalt not lie.’, but this misses the point. Very important are the words ‘against your neighbor’. Notice also that the ninth commandment doesn’t say ‘…false witness to your neighbor’ but rather, ‘…false witness against your neighbor’. This makes all the difference when looking at the gray-areas of lying, for it signifies that intent is definitely a factor in determining if a lie is a sin or not. John Frame has a great definition that I will borrow: “I would say that a lie is a word or act that intentionally deceives a neighbor in order to hurt him.”[2] This is exactly what the ninth commandment is getting at by its lengthy definition instead of simply saying, ‘Thou shalt not lie’.

To make things easier, let’s divide the broad topic of lying into three categories. The first is speaking untruths to enemies, the second, speaking untruths for the purpose of preserving someone from a calamity, and the third, speaking untruths as jokes. Now let’s go through each one and apply our updated definition of lying.

Although Jesus greatly expanded the concept of neighbor, we must not make the assumption that everybody is our neighbor. When the Nazis show up at your door looking for Jews, they are not neighbors but enemies, for they are seeking innocent life. This being the case, it is perfectly fine to bear false witness against them. Also, those who are at war with you are your enemies. Consider the ambush that the Israelites used to trick the people of Ai. This was an outright deceit against the residents of Ai, but since it was during a time of war it was acceptable. This validates secrecy and even deceit during wartime, and shows that bearing false witness against your enemies is a legitimate use of ‘lying’.

For our second category, speaking untruths for the purpose of preserving someone from a calamity, let’s go back to the illustration of dad and little Johnny. Dad is telling Johnny, his neighbor, an untruth, yet it is not against him. Dad is trying to save Johnny from harm, and is telling this untruth for what he believes is in Johnny’s best interest. Thus, according to our definition of lying, this isn’t a lie at all. Some may, at this point, begin to reason that with this definition of lying, the door has been left open for all kinds of untruth telling. ‘Why, as long as it’s not hurting anyone it must be alright.’ This is a faulty line of reasoning that I do not endorse at all, and is not founded in scripture. Ephesians 4:25 says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” We are still called to uphold the truth in everyday life, and truth should be the norm.

Similarly, others will swing the pendulum too far in regards to the clarification I just made. There are many people who hold Augustine’s view on lying, saying that all forms of untruths, except jokes, should never be uttered under any circumstances. Augustine does agree that the Hebrew midwives were approved and rewarded by God, but he goes on to make this disclaimer. “But it is one thing that is set forth as laudable in itself, another that in comparison with a worse is preferred.”[3] What he’s getting at here is that the reason the midwives were approved in what they did is that they were taking a step in the right direction. Instead of lying for only nefarious reasons, they had others’ good in mind. Although still a sin, it was a step in the right direction and that is why they were approved of. Augustine’s line of reasoning, however, contains some fairly exorbitant theological maneuvering, which I think does not do scripture justice. The midwives were approved by God for their actions solely because those actions were good. Countless lives were saved by their ‘lying’, and the untruths they told do not even fall under the category of lying by our definition.

On the third category of lying, jokes, both Augustine and John Frame agree: this is no sin. The reason speaking untruths through jokes or games is not a sin is because it is expected, and both parties know what is going on. Thus ‘deceiving’ your opponents in a trick play to score a goal is perfectly acceptable, and even an untruth for a practical joke is fine as well. There is a real danger here though that we must be aware of; practical jokes often denigrate to instances where someone is harmed. When this occurs, it is no longer a joke and needs to be corrected swiftly. Proverbs 26:18-19 will shed some light here: “Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”” When everybody stops having fun, it ceases to be a joke.

Now, the quintessential topic on lying: Santa Claus. This is an untruth that some parents tell their children, not out of any desire to protect them, but only for the sheer delight it brings to themselves. This is not inherently wrong, as we’ve just discussed, but the question is: does Santa Claus cross the line? Now, no one is immediately hurt by being made to believe in Santa Claus, indeed, it can be fun at first. The problem is that there is no good resolution for the end of the joke. More often than not, it is a young playmate who will break the news to some child, and then there are a few things that will likely happen: little Johnny may believe his friend and conclude that his parents lied to him. He may not think of it as a joke at all, and the faith he has in his parents will be shaken. “If mom and dad lied about this,” he’ll think, “what else are they lying about?” Or perhaps he’ll come up to his parents and ask directly if Santa Claus is real or not. The best way to minimize damage at this point is for them to let little Johnny know it was all a joke. If they choose not to say this though, the parents will end up needing to tell him more untruths. Eventually, as we all know, there will come a time when Johnny knows for certain that Santa Claus does not exist, and then all the cards are out on the table, with a good chance that he will be hurt in some fashion.

Now, many will argue that by the time children come to realize that Santa is all a myth, they will be old enough to understand that this is a cultural thing that ‘everybody’ does. Thus, they will not be hurt by the joke and will not hold it against their parents. While this does sound convincing, we need to realize that there is no way to know if they will be understanding or not. Will they get it, or will they not? It’s impossible to know either way, but this we do know: those instances where they hold a grudge will be far more damaging than the alternative is fun. This is a dangerous risk to take, and not worth it in long run. Even if merely five percent of children were adversely affected, it would still be too dangerous a thing to undertake simply for a little enjoyment on your end. Sinclair Ferguson wrote wisely that, “The question we need to be asking is not: Is it alright for me to do this as a Christian? But rather these questions: Is this going to build up? Is this going to strengthen the fellowship of God’s people? Is this going to advance my goal of running towards Jesus Christ and glory?”[4] While the myth of Santa Claus may fall under the category of jokes and thus be technically lawful, it still poses significant risks that should not be taken lightly. And frankly, I have a hard time believing that parents who tell their children about Santa are going to strengthen the fellowship of God’s people. They may even do just the opposite.

Bearing false witness is not sinful in itself. There are a handful of instances where it is acceptable to lie, but these situations should be handled with wisdom and temperance. When it is determined that telling an untruth is the best course of action, Christians can do so without any sense of guilt, knowing they are blameless in God’s sight.

Bibliography

Augustine, “On Lying.” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1312.htm. Accessed February 24^th, 2017.

Ferguson, Sinclair B., Devoted to God, Edinburgh, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016.

Frame, John M., The Doctrine of the Christian Life, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2008.

           

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1. Exodus 20:16, ESV.

            2. John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, pg. 835.

3. Augustine, “On Lying,” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1312.htm, accessed February 24^th, 2017.

4. Sinclair B. Ferguson, Devoted to God, pgs. 195-196.

The Pickaxe

Winter was especially cold that year, but my brother Zach and I were always excited to get out of the house and into the woods. We had everything we needed: knife, 22. Pistol, pickaxe, and a five-gallon bucket filled with all the other little things we might use. Sadly, our trapline didn’t catch anything that day, so we moved a few of them around and rebaited them, hoping for better results the next day. On the way back home it started snowing again, and by the time we got to our little ten foot Casita R.V. it was coming down about as fast as a fox-chased rabbit. Stashing our gear away quickly, we left the Casita and raced to the house: it was dinnertime. I don’t remember what we ate that day, but it was good. The tables were filled with plenty of food, people, and merriment. Whenever you have eighteen people together for a meal, you’re bound to have a good time, even if there isn’t a special occasion. Some might say that having eighteen people around the table for dinner is a special occasion in and of itself, but this was completely normal for our family. In fact, it was completely normal for both our families. Sharing a double-wide mobile home with another family comes with its challenges, chief among them being the fact that between the eighteen of us there was only one bathroom, but mealtimes were one of the things that more than made up for it. We ate, talked, and finished eating, and once the mess from dinner was all cleaned up, we kids goofed around until it was time to go bed. Zach and I headed out to our tiny little R.V. to bunk down for the night while everybody else drifted to their beds and off to sleep in the nice warm house. Meanwhile, our Casita was not exactly warm. As soon as we got inside we quickly shut the door and turned on the space heater to begin the arduous process of warming up our little space. After what seemed like ages, it was good enough that we could take our boots off, and, in due time, our coats, hats, and gloves as well. I crawled into my sleeping bag and drifted pleasantly off to sleep…

Bam! I felt the cold sting of a point-blank snowball crash into my face, yank me out of my dreams, and bring me screaming back to reality. “What was that for!?”

Zach just laughed. “Haha, got you good, didn’t I? Betcha didn’t see that coming!”

I glared at him while wiping the snow out of my face, and quickly discovered I needed to blow my nose. There was not a tissue, napkin, or piece of paper in sight, so I did what any decent human being would do: I jumped out of the Casita into the snow and blew my nose freestyle. As I did so, I landed on a hard rock underneath the fresh snow and my foot felt a dull pain. Annoyed, I climbed back into bed, still seething about Zach’s snowball attack. I tried to go back to sleep, but my foot started hurting more and more, and then it started throbbing. Finally, the pain became great enough that I decided to look at my foot and see what the matter was. How could a simple rock hurt that bad? As I brought my foot into view, I stared, horrified. There was a huge gash that ran along the base of three of my toes, and it looked pretty deep. There was enough blood to drown half a dozen gadflies. Then I realized that it wasn’t a rock I had landed on, but the pickaxe Zach had hastily ‘put away’ that got buried in snow. Suddenly the pain zipped up my nervous system and I was hurting. “This is bad,” I thought to myself, “real bad!” Without saying a word, I threw on a jacket and a boot, and jumped out the door. Zach thought I was still mad about the whole snowball thing. “Where are you going?” he shouted after me. I just yelled ‘inside’ and continued hopping to the back porch door, leaving bright red spots on the pure white snow in my wake.

It was around 10:30 or so when I interrupted the adults’ conversation by noisily hopping down the hallway and telling them I had an accident. As soon as I came into view my mother knew something was wrong, for she could see the trail I was making on the carpet and could hear my heavy breathing. Soon half the house was up and grimacing at the sight of me, or rather, my foot. My mother soon realized there wasn’t much that could be done: I’d just have to sit around the house until it healed. And so began my long painful journey. The next day found me sitting on the corner of our wrap-around couch with my foot propped up on the little green ottoman. And the next day found me in the same spot, and the next, and the next. I couldn’t walk, or run, or do any fun things at all. Everybody else would go outside for sledding and snowball fights, but I had to stay inside and rest my foot. I had to hop everywhere I went until we finally found some crutches. Well, it was actually just one crutch, so it was still difficult to move around, but it wasn’t as bad as no crutch at all.

The days slowly ticked by. I read every interesting book we owned, and then started in on the boring ones. I played far too many games of solitaire and kept up on my schoolwork, but that’s about it. I began to feel useless. There was no way to help, and I was less than helpful because people actually had to help me. As the winter pressed on, things became tenser as cabin fever set in. Eighteen people confined in a small double-wide gets claustrophobic pretty fast, and winter wasn’t helping. We were mostly snowed in, we couldn’t get to town to buy more food, and the pipes were frozen and we barely had any water. Things weren’t looking so great, and stress was oozing out of every crack and crevice of the house. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I couldn’t help the dads clear the driveway, or fill up our cistern with water, or anything. The moms and older daughters already did all the cooking, and I couldn’t really help clean the kitchen either. I was totally useless. I wanted to run and be free, I wanted to get out of that stuffy house, but I couldn’t. Everybody else got to go outside, run around, burn off some steam, and get away from the cramped quarters from time to time, but I had to stay one hundred percent immobile. Few things are more infuriating for a young boy of twelve or so, and it was hard to keep my bitterness in check. But I knew that nobody wants to be around a self-pitying sour kid, and if that’s who I was going to be it’d just make everybody miserable. So, happy I must be.

I did my best to be helpful around the house, but about all I could do was chop vegetables and pick the chicken off the bones. So, that’s what I did, and a lot of it. Then I started reading Dr. Seuss books to the littles kids, and before you knew it I was spending a several hours a day reading stories aloud to not just the little guys, but also the older kids as well. Next I asked our friends’ oldest daughter if she would teach me how to crochet. At first Kayla thought I was joking, but her eyes lit up when she found I was serious, and she was more than happy to show me. Pretty soon I was there crocheting away with the best of them. I started cracking jokes and making up stories to tell, and soon everybody loved being around me. I kept all the little kids busy most of the day, and things became less stressful for me and for everybody else.

Gradually, I came to realize the power I had gained. Whenever I was especially happy, the entire house seemed to be extra joyful, and whenever I was glum, everybody seemed to be more downcast and not exactly peaceful. And then it hit me: if I hadn’t been injured, there’s no way I would have come to have such influence among the children. With two healthy feet, I wouldn’t have spent so much time reading to everybody, playing with the little guys, or learning to crochet. I wouldn’t have been there to help keep things under control, and none of the mothers or older children would have ever gotten a break. It was then that I truly learned that God sometimes uses bad circumstances to bring about a great good. And sometimes, that good is simply making it through the winter in one piece.

Out On the Open Sea

Brandie, Joel, and I made up the crew for our commercial fishing outfit. Brandie was the owner, Joel the skipper, and I was the green crewhand who didn’t know squat. After several hours of delay, the crane operator at the docks finally launched both our skiffs, and we were off on our way to start the salmon season. The skiff Joel and I were in had twin 115 outboard motors and eight six-gallon gasoline jugs to get us to the fish camp. It normally takes five or six tanks to get there, so we had plenty of gas. Brandie drove the other skiff by himself, also with twin 115 outboards, but they were hooked straight up to two 55-gallon drums of gas, which were going to last us for the season. Besides the gas, a few bags of gear, and our coolers with the food for the season, the skiffs were completely empty. Unfortunately, since we had been delayed several hours, it was now a flood tide instead of an ebb tide. This meant that instead of millions of gallons of water flowing out of the bay, giving us a nice current to ride out on, millions of gallons of water were now flowing into the bay, so we now had to buck tide the entire way out. This added about an hour to our trip.

I didn’t really care though; I was having a blast. I was in the funnest place to ride in a skiff: right up at the bow. I can see all the open water out in front of me, and the entire time the bow is being bounced up and down on the waves, which makes for an exciting ride. Each time the boat goes down and hits a wave, a shot of sea spray jumps up into your face, so to avoid getting doused in saltwater you have to turn your head away and let it splash onto the back of your rainjacket’s hood. Occasionally I’d get the timing wrong and a nice cold wave of salt would greet my face, and invariably find its way into my mouth. All this spray that was flying into the boat made its way to the back of the boat where Joel was, and collected in the slop bin at his feet. Eventually this filled up, and when it did so, he showed me how to open the plug at the bottom and let the water drain out. We were going fast enough that the other water couldn’t come in.

Before we set off that day, we had thought we’d seen a break in the weather. Well, we were right. We had most definitely thought we’d seen a break. This turned out to be most definitely false. In fact, the longer we were out there bucking tide, the larger the waves got, and the harder the wind blew. This made even more water splash up over the sides, and the skiff banged down harder and harder on the water. As time went on, it became more and more difficult to stay on without falling over, and so I steadily made my way to the rear of the boat. Next thing you know I’m all the way at the back with Joel and the gas tanks. Speaking of which, we had to change gas tanks even before getting out of the little bay of Egegik. This was an alarming sign, because we should have been far out of the bay before needing to swap tanks. Joel decided it’d be best to just run one engine, so that way we’d be sure to have enough gas to make it.

Sure enough, the storm intensified. The waves kept getting bigger and bigger. What had started out as a choppy day soon became three-foot seas.

Joel’s face became stern, “I’m hoping this will settle down once we get out of the bay. Often times it’s actually calmer out there.”

Partly reassured, I, well, just stood there; not that it mattered at all that I was partly reassured, because what else was I supposed to do out in a boat in rough seas? At any rate, we continued on. Once we passed the final sand bar and made it out into the open sea, things didn’t really get better. In fact, they got much worse. Now we were driving through five-foot seas, and the amount of spray coming over the sides was incredible. As the hours went by, the waves grew higher and higher, and our gas tanks became lighter and lighter. Three times we hit the crest of a wave wrong and went airborne before slamming down like a sledge hammer on the water below. This was kind of fun, but I knew it was a great way to flip a boat, and we’d surely die if that happened.

Everybody knows the ocean is big, but it was only now that I fully realized the sheer massiveness of the ocean. I even had a taste of what the Israelites must have experienced walking through the Red Sea. When we were in the trough of the wave there was a wall of water on either side high enough to scare the living daylights out of me. When we were climbing to the top of the wave our entire skiff would be at the steepest angle till we made it to the top, where we could see the land off in the distance and catch a glimpse of Brandie’s boat before being brought back below to the bottom of the wave. Few things will rejuvenate your prayer life better than being tossed around like a cork in twenty-two foot seas.

All of a sudden, it hit us. We went airborne and as soon as we slammed down on the water a wave crashed into us broadside. Joel and I were smacked across the head with a surge of water, and our boat took on water over the side before once again righting itself. We carried on, and I kept praying that we’d just make it through and arrive safely. It was a constant fight to approach each wave correctly; one slip up and we’d be dead or drowning. Probably the scariest thing though was that I had absolutely no power whatsoever over the situation. All I could do is trust the skill of my skipper and pray God would keep us safe. And pray I did: “Lord, please keep us safe, but if it’s my time to go, I am ready. But if I do make it back home, I’ll be content, even if we don’t catch any fish this season. Lord, grant us peace!”

Just then Joel shouted, “Oh boy!” (Actually, that’s not what he said, but we’ll just leave it there.) “Our plug came out, we’re taking on water!”

I looked down at my feet, and he wasn’t lying. Water had filled up the entire slop bin and we were ankle deep already.

Joel started giving orders, “The plug came out when we hit that wave, it’s at the bottom of the slop bin. Take off the grate and find it!”

I quickly started trying to get the grate undone, but the water had already completely covered the grate and I couldn’t see what I was doing. Never having opened the grate before, I was at a loss for what to do.

Then Joel roared, “Get that stinking grate out!!”

I yelled back, “I can’t, I don’t know how to open it!”

Filled with frustration, he gave me the wheel, and for a few frightening seconds I steered while he got the grate open and threw it to the front of the boat. “Start bailing!” he barked while taking the wheel back. I grabbed up the nearest bucket and began bailing, while thoughts rushed through my mind: “I am literally bailing for my life. In the middle of the sea. With twenty-foot waves. I can’t believe this is happening! Keep us safe Lord!”

I didn’t think about this at the time, but I’m really thankful that I didn’t scoop up the plug in my bucket and throw it overboard. We would have been in a real tight spot indeed.

Adrenaline kicked in. I’ve never pitched buckets so fast in my life, and amazingly, it was fast enough. The water slowly lowered beneath the level of the remaining half of the grate, and so I left my bucket and started running my hands all around the bottom of the slop bin.

“It’s not here!” I yelled.

“It’s gotta be down there,” Joel bellowed back, “look under the other half of the grate!”

I got down on my knees and thrust my arm under the water beneath the other grate. It just about froze my whole left arm, but I kept groping around for the plug. At last, the tip of my finger touched the end of it, which, of course, was in the far corner of the slop bin.

“I can touch it!” “Get it then!” But my arm wasn’t long enough. I tried and tried and tried. Finally, I went all in, jamming my arm in so hard that the metal dug into my skin. Two of my fingers managed to grasp the tip of the plug, and I pulled it out. I placed the plug back in the hole and clamped it shut. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

But we weren’t out of the woods yet. During all that commotion, we had been driven off course and lost sight of Brandie’s skiff. We were alone on the water, and all our gas tanks were perilously light and we were running on fumes. We carried on another thirty minutes or so before catching up with Brandie, who had stopped and waited for us.

Joel hollered across the waves to Brandie, “Stay close, we’re gonna run out of gas soon!” After another hour of driving, the sea calmed down to a mere six feet and we ran used up the last of our gas. We didn’t have the tools to get anything out of the 55-gallon drums, so Brandie had to pull us with a strap. If we were going slow before, now we were really going slow. After what seemed like ages, we made it to the Ugashik district, but since it was now low tide, we had to wait on the sand bars for another hour. At long last, the water became deep enough to float us, and we went the final twenty minutes farther and made it to shore.

I never thought I’d be so happy to be on land again, but I was elated. After seven hours of being beaten around by the waves, with no food and little water, we were worn through. Four hours later, after getting all the necessary work done to set up camp, we sat down to eat dinner. We rehashed what had just happened, thankful we had made it through safely. A little while later I was lying in my bunk, about to drift off to sleep. “Thank you Lord for the life you have given me!”