Parking Holiness

Not the sign that got me, but a typical example.

One of the complaints people level against God is the strict arbitrariness of His law—one strike and you’re punished for eternity. There is a modern day equivalent…of the stereotype.

Right outside my office window is a service drive, with several signs predicting Armageddon if you park there. I do from time to time if I simply have to run to my office and pick up or drop off something, and no more. This past Saturday afternoon, I needed to get my laptop on my way out of town for a family birthday. While in my office, nature called on the red phone, and in fear and trembling I hurried to the little chemist’s room. Sure enough, when I returned to my vehicle, the service drive was flowing with the blood of the damned, a $75 parking citation. On campus!

In my opinion, the Uni’s Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) is aptly named, if you understand “service” in the context of a farmer servicing his bull and herd. The rules are without mercy, and if you are caught, the penalty is severe. They are completely self-funded—based on citation revenue, $500 annual parking permits, plus other fees and costs recovery. Thus, it is in their best interest to fine first and laugh at appeals. Yes, I am bitter and frustrated, not the most Biblical of attitudes.

Yet, it captures the way many people view God and His holiness:  arbitrary, on a power trip, a killjoy, no mercy, delighting in the pain, suffering and frustration of basically good people. Many are embittered and frustrated, believing God can’t be a God of love if He’ll punish people all out of proportion when the smallest toe creeps the narrowest nanometer over a line even thinner and maybe in motion.

Except…

Fighting is Good for the Soul

In some ways, teaching is like parenting in that we are trying to shape human beings, sometimes against or in spite of their wills, and certainly against their fallen natures. If you’ve been reading TSR for any length of time, you know that it can easily frustrate me, and does many other educators from time to time.

I came across an article today called, “Midnight in the Bedroom of Good and Evil,” which is worth reading for the title alone, that dealt with how parents (and educators, by extension) not only struggle against the resistance of their children, but how that creates a sympathetic eruption of their own fallen natures—selfishness, anger, frustration, irritability, and so on.

The author tells an account I will repeat here about a monk living among the Desert Fathers.

Following Which Design Plan?

Part of my wing of the chemistry building is nearing the completion of a year-long renovation project. As my teaching lab is moving to the ‘new’ space, I gave the architects detailed plans for how I wanted the space built out, to scale, using industry standard design software, and gave them both hard and electronic copies of the design. You know where this is heading.

One D--- Thing After Another

“Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited.”                      Robert Freeman

The title comes from an old family expression. Not that our clan coined it, but it seems to be a common generational experience. A similar one from a former coworker is “It’s never easy and it’s always something.”

Silly me offered to replace a part on a friend’s car while she was out of town. Another friend who’s much better with cars volunteered to help. Good thing. With much difficulty, we got the part replaced, but discovered the water pump had a puncture in it, which probably caused the problem we were fixing. We just finished the job we were doing, put water in and I drove it back to let it sit until the car’s owner decides what to do next.

Reboot

My laptop is dying a slow death. The optical drive (CD/DVD) doesn’t work, it starts up about half the time and takes forever the other half, it runs too hot, and today I discovered that the built-in webcam no longer ‘exists’ as far as the computer is concerned.

It is old enough and I’ve made enough upgrades that HP doesn’t want to touch it. I scoured the web most of the afternoon looking for help on the webcam issue because I need it for a project. Found a users forum where two people have the same problem with the same machine and no solutions.

Confession

I blew it today.

I am currently participating in a special program through our University Extension service. They have partnered with a foreign chemical company. This company identifies talented high school students in its native country and hires them upon graduation. The students are sent to one of several partner schools in the US such as mine for 18 months of intensive English, study skills and introduction to basic technical courses (physics, calculus, and, oh, yeah, chemistry). Upon completion of the program, they enter various American universities for their undergrad degree in engineering before going back to work for the company.

I got these students in January to give them a very remedial introduction to freshman level chemistry. Some of these folks have had 3 years of high school chemistry already, but they learned it in their native tongue and by their native school system, which is very stringently rote learning. So learning a complex subject like chemistry in a new language with the critical thinking methods we use here can be a real challenge, hence the program.

When they started with me, they had been here a full year already, and are tired.

Groaning in Travail

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”                                                                                                                Romans 8:22

Someone close to me is continually frustrated in his efforts to complete projects. It seems that products designed to accomplish specific tasks are always insufficient for the job. They are made too cheaply, don’t come with the right parts, the instructions are incomplete or nonsensical, fail to last a reasonable length of time—you get the idea.

I have tried to figure out if these things are so bad, why aren’t their more dissatisfied people? Are their needs different than his, so it works for them, but not for his needs? No, because he doesn’t use them (usually) outside their advertised purpose.

Is it a matter of expectation? In other words, are folks just satisfied with mediocrity, and he still has ideals set to a higher standard of performance? Maybe.

Is he just unlucky in the items he chooses to buy, both mechanical and electronic? I doubt it. I don’t know many people who spend more time researching products ahead of time than him.

As I share similar struggles to him at times (I think most of us do.), I try to understand what seems to be the problem.

One thing is likely he expects things to last, and perhaps many people are more comfortable than him with the idea that most things are disposable today.

Another idea is that he has an engineer’s heart and wants/expects things to move/work smoothly to a high degree of perfection, while others just do the best they can and focus on things with a higher priority in their lives.

I’m not issuing value judgments here either way—just trying to look at potential contrasts to see which ones fit best.

Why?

We live in a fallen world. All of us are more affected by various aspects of that fallen state than others, but we each have some key vulnerability(ies). This may be his. But whatever it is for you, me, or him, it is our reminder that there is something better out there, a hope that is calling out to us from the futility of our struggles. Pain, frustration, despair are things that call us to higher possibilities reminding us that this isn’t our true home. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain that “Pain is God’s megaphone, to rouse a deaf world.”

But, as Christians, we would like to think we are roused, so He can put the megaphone away and quit yelling at us. It is like the sleepy high school student, yelling at mom to pipe down with an irritated, “I’m up! I’m up!”

But are we? Will we fall back asleep the moment it’s peaceful and quiet in our contented lives? Or, perhaps God isn’t yelling through a megaphone anymore, and now that we are awake, we see the mess of the world on our own, and we can’t seem to get away from it, because we are still in that world.

Does it really matter which way it is? It is our reality, regardless. So the question is how are we to respond?

Whether it is a continually buggy computer, or a vehicle that makes that horrible rattle that can’t be located, or a boss or colleague that makes work miserable, or a chronic malady hampering our health, we have to deal with it.

I’m not a self-help guru, so I don’t have “three easy steps” or “90 days to a new you.” All I know to do is to talk with the Lord about it, choose what attitude to have (and ask His help to maintain it!), and keep our attention focused on the important things in our lives, not the loudest.

A friend of mine puts it like this:  “Imagine your right hand is Christ and your left is your problems. If you focus on your problems, it is like you hold your left hand in front of your eyes and your right hand at arm’s length, and your problems are big and overwhelming and Christ seems small. If however, you focus on Christ and eternal things, it is like you are holding your right hand in front of your eyes and your left at arm’s length, and now Jesus is revealed to be bigger than your problems, and they, in turn, are cut down to size.”

A little cheesy perhaps, especially to write out, but there is a lot of truth to that.

“For the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross.” Ok. That is perspective. What problems are in our lives that compare to crucifixion? That is a BIG inconvenience to one’s life (yes, tongue in cheek). Yet, He saw a joy that made that horror endurable. If our microscopic problems are so powerful that our joy is stolen, how pitiful is that joy?

Perhaps we do still need God to use that megaphone after all.

SDG

Going Amish

There are days when the promise of technology is a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, and you just long for the ‘days of simplicity.’ Things weren’t fancy, and often could be a little uncomfortable, but the pace was slower, the needs usually less, and the reality of interdependence with your neighbors was great.

Today was one of those days where more time was wasted than things accomplished, all because the promise of technology fell through. Devices refusing to be on speaking terms because one thing got updated and the rest couldn’t hang, aging devices on the verge of obsolescence and silicone senility, and non-existent or callously cavalier support that doesn’t really try to solve your issues.

A former colleague had as his email sig file, “Computers were designed to help more people waste more time, faster.” Amen.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening helping friends build cattle pens, then run the calves through the chute to give them medicines for worms and pink eye. It was a long hard day, but there was a sense of ‘mission accomplished’ with the ability to look at what our hands had done. Yeah, we made heavy use of tractors, trucks, ATV’s, generators, power tools, arc welding, but we also used hammer, nails, post-hole diggers, horses, rope and other manual tools. The cell phones were usually an interruption. It was nice.

It was also in the 50’s and 60’s instead of the 90’s and 100’s. It was sunny, not rainy. It is funny—no matter how pointless or significant our work may seem, how old-fashioned or cutting-edge, the Curse is found there too. What makes us keep going? Why do we keep striving against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

I can only conclude that either 1) we don’t know what else to do, or 2) we have a vision, a goal, that drives and compels us to push over, past or through the obstacles of this life.

How can we help our students find their vision and draw strength and dignity from it? How can we inspire them through our example? How can we point to the Creator and Sustainer of all things, through whom we have the power and command to overcome?

SDG

Computers

The hard drive on my laptop has been filling up and also failing slowly over the last several months, so I’d bought a new, larger drive for it and an upgrade to Win7 and waited for the semester to end to install it. I decided today was the day to take the plunge, and, of course, since it is a computer I’m dealing with, it went smooth as silk.

The computer wouldn’t let me make back up disks of the original recovery partition. Then when I put the new drive and the new operating system DVD in, nothing happened. I tried a variety of tricks to get something to work and nada.

I go to campus to the department IT shop and experienced what I call “Mechanic Syndrome.” I start up the computer for the techs and the DVD boots up and asks if I want to install Win7.

In the intervening hours, I have installed the OS and many of the main applications I use and am now restoring my data, settings and documents. It looks like it will take several days for everything to be restored and cleaned up properly. Indeed, in order to post this, I had to restore certain things first.

A colleague in grad school had as his signature file on email, “Computers were designed to help more people waste more time faster.” That bit of truth is so solid, it belongs in the Bible. Imagine the shock scholars would have if it were found on a newly discovered manuscript of Mark’s Gospel, in red letters no less.

Actually, it is in Scripture in Ecclesiastes. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What profit has a man from all of his labor in which he toils under the sun? (or by the light of an LED screen!)

“What could be so hard? It’s just ones and zeroes…”

{Remember, be sure to check in Christmas Day…}

SDG

Things That Go Bump at the End of the Semester

In an earlier post, I think I mentioned how as a student I hated the end of the semester because it meant I was out of time for ‘catching up,’ and that now end-of-term-dread is lessened, but not removed, because I get to see human beings change into cornered/panicked animals. It’s not a pretty sight.

Today, I did a preliminary posting of the grades on one of the university’s online gradebooks, and announced as much. About 45 minutes ago, I got a panicked email (from a non-native English speaking student):

“Dear Dr Robb J Wilson

                   I just go to eGradebook to check my grade and I didn't see my letter grade yet. Oh no, am I fail your class?”

Emotion trumps logic—“No letter grade = fail” instead of “No Letter Grade = @$%@#$$ technology” Keep in mind also, that the numerical grade IS posted, and the grade breaks are in the syllabus. That’s too much work. It’s much easier to panic and email the instructor. And these are upperclassmen.

In all honesty, I do get frustrated and tired by the stream of panic, attempted manipulation, anger, indignation, immaturity, and so on. I forget that this is actually a small percentage of the total class (something about a squeaking wheel comes to mind). My defenses are raised up and I have to force myself sometimes to stop and listen to them to see if, actually, they have a valid complaint. I should be more patient. I just want to wrap up the semester and move on.

Then I remember our Father. I have to laugh at what HIS perspective must be when He sees/hears us panic at what to Him is not even an anthill. I suddenly get real thankful that He shows me far more patience than I sometimes show my students. Is my frustration reflecting Christ? Uhh, let me get back to you.

SDG