Absorbing other people's moods

On last week's This American Life, there is an episode about the personality types that negatively affect workplace behavior--The Jerk, The Slacker, and The Pessimistic/Depressive. Some guy did some research and found out that when you have one of these people in a group (any group), they consistently and dramatically bring the entire group down. This goes against the grain of contemporary research that says that a group tends to make individuals conform to the group dynamic. This research suggests that, for at least these personality types, it goes the other way.

This is interesting to me because the last few months I have been noticing just how much I absorb other people's moods. When I am with happy people, I am happy. When I read a happy or at least hopeful story or book, I am content. By contrast, when I read an upsetting story, I am upset. When I am with a complainer, I get into a bad mood. When other people aren't doing their job, I don't feel like doing mine. I totally absorb other people's moods. It doesn't happen for long--I don't keep it in me for days, but it is able to shift my mood for at least a couple of hours and up to a day. (The same is true for positive interactions.)

And this happens despite my awareness of this, despite my attempts to build emotional boundaries, despite my attempts to intentionally counteract the "bad mood," and despite using contemplative practices like meditation. I've noticed that awareness and emotional boundaries and intentionality and meditation really HELP, but not nearly as much as when I avoid those situations in the first place.

I also see this happening with my interactions with Dean. For example, several times I have noticed that, if I am tired or cranky, and I am close to Dean, he tends to suddenly get very tired or cranky too.

I'm not yet sure what all of this means. But it raises lots of questions for me. Like:

• Is "escaping" the bad stuff a good thing? (it doesn't seem so) And if so, how?
  
• how do those in the helping professions stay centered? I am by nature pretty good at detachment, but if this is happening to me, surely it is happening to folks in the helping professions even more
  
• Was Norman Vincent Peale on to something? (although I still think that the extreme version of that, like The Secret, is still way out there).

I find myself wanting to spend much more time intentionally absorbing "good moods" or at least finding ever more effective ways of counteracting the bad moods.

What's humane?

This is a heartwarming story: Meet Forrest Hump

Here is how it starts:

The camel’s dark oval eyes were glazed, the lids only half open. He lay on the ground in his pen, his mangy flanks quivering with each labored breath. That November morning, Roger, our animal director at Boys Ranch Town, a 145-acre farm for troubled boys on the outskirts of Edmond, Oklahoma, had come to me, worried. “I can’t get him to stand,” he said. “He’s rubbing holes in his skin by dragging himself around.” Now I watched anxiously as the vet I’d called looked the camel over. Despite arthritis and wobbly joints, the exotic creature had become an integral part of our program since he was donated to us a couple of years ago, teaching the boys the responsibility of caring for an animal, and even starring in the scene with the wise men in our annual drive-through Christmas pageant. He was as friendly as a great big puppy, and the boys loved Forrest Hump, as they called him. Finally, the vet finished his examination. “Your camel has progressive, degenerative joint disease,” he said. “He’s not going to get better. The humane thing would be to put him down.”

I've never quite understood why "putting down" an animal with generative joint disease is "humane" [human], but forcing a human with painful generative joint disease to go on living is humane, and assisting them towards death is murder. I don't know who is right, I only know that it doesn't make sense. You'll have to read the story to see how they decided.

So unexpected

Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds; Teenagers Who Make Such Promises Are Just as Likely to Have Sex, and Less Likely to Use Protection, the Data Indicate

Really, who would have thunk that pledges wouldn't work?

Planet Earth

Last night, Dean and I watched a marathon of Planet Earth. It's something that I was vaguely aware of a few months ago (mostly for beating out Kathy Griffin for an Emmy). But last night we watched it on Discovery-HD. I just have to say that it is absolutely an amazing show!!!! And on HD it is just incredible. I'm stunned by the manhours it must have taken to shoot.

Below is part of an episode that I found on youtube. Compared to the HD version, this looks like total crap. But it's the best I could find to show you what I mean.

Catching Up

Been a while since I blogged. Since I'm busy, this is actually pulling together some emails I've sent out to friends in the last few days and turning them into a blog post.

Christmas went well. We spent the day at Dean’s mom’s house. We got there at about 9 and had blueberry coffee cake for breakfast. As we visited and snacked on munchies (mostly candy, which I had to stop after a while cuz it was making me sick), we watched a bit of the Disneyland Parade. (Dean loves parades; I don’t care for them much). We opened prezzies at about 10. Dean was caught completely by surprise by the hdtv I got him. I got mostly books and DVDs. People just raided my amazon wish list and gave me stuff from that. Which is fine by me. One neat thing I got was one of the Lego sets. I know it sounds totally stupid, but I love putting Legos together. It’s very relaxing without the glue and mess of model ships or whatever. Anyway…

Dean’s mom forgot to put the ham in the oven in the morning, and she didn’t discover it until after we had opened prezzies, so she had to get that in the oven. So, we were late having lunch/dinner. We normally have it at 1pm, but this time we had it at about 2:30. It was still great tho—ham, scalloped potatoes, fruit salad, pumpkin bread, and vegetable casserole. Yum! I went into a post-dinner coma almost immediately afterwards and snoozed on the couch for about a half hour.

We finally got home at about 3:30 in the afternoon and just lazed about the rest of the day. Yesterday, we spent most of the day setting up the new HDTV (which required a trip to radio shack for cables and the cable company to get an HD cable box), and totally re-arranging the family room furniture. I totally love the new arrangement. It’s very cozy. And the tv is awesome. Dean has really been enjoying it.

Sunday I preached at church. My sermon topic was “Christmas Wish.” The scripture text was Luke 11:5-13. I showed the short film “Santa’s Little Helper,” which you can find on iTunes here http://www.jgsfilms.com/ . It’s an 11-minute film about a woman whose Christmas wish is to find true love that goes on a blind date with what turns out to be one of Santa’s elves. There are a couple of “PG” moments in the film that might get people bad mouthing me to the pastor, but I don’t care.

After the short film, I briefly discussed two of the questions that the film raised for me: (1) what is my Christmas wish for 2009? I developed the idea that sometimes I think I am asking for bread, when it turns out I’m really asking for a snake, and being thankful that God doesn’t always give me what I think I want. I also developed the idea that often I do not know what I want or need, and that this is an opportunity to spend time with God asking for God’s insight and wisdom for my life. (2) am I willing to ask, seek, and knock? Just as the main character in the film had to take an active part in making her Christmas wish come true, so I have to be willing to go beyond my comfort zone, to ask, to seek, and to knock, and to be aware of the opportunities that God brings to me. And if I am not willing to take that risk, then at least I might be willing to ask for the strength and courage that I need.

I closed by noting that we rarely give ourselves the time and space to ponder these questions. So, my Christmas gift for them was the gift of time and space. At the end of my sermon, we had 5 minutes of quiet, allowing the congregation to ponder these questions, or any other questions that the film raised for them, and allowing them to bring their thoughts, questions and responses to God.

This is the last sermon I’m doing for a while. At least 6 months. I find them very emotionally draining to do. It is very hard to be interesting, clear, thought provoking, caring, and challenging/transforming without judging all at once.

Bankers get bad securities for bonuses

This sounds like a GREAT idea!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/22/rediker.bonus/index.html

Credit Suisse, just announced that it would pay its bankers up to 80 percent of their 2008 year-end bonuses in the form of what The Wall Street Journal called "an illiquid group of junk bonds, mortgage-backed securities and corporate loans" instead of cash or stock, as had been the norm throughout the industry.

CS effectively told its bankers that this year, instead of getting paid money, they would get paid in kind -- the same kind of over-leveraged, securitized paper that caused much of the crisis in the first place.

Computer viruses

My computer was crippled all day yesterday as I struggled with a computer virus that nothing could detect. McAfee didn't detect it, neither did Spybot Search&Destroy. After tracking it down manually, I found 3 parts of it, and got rid of it, only to find that some other part I couldn't find kept restoring it. It was vicious. Searches of google for the .dlls (kazepala.dll, gadibure.dll, hokovinu.dll and others) revealed almost nothing. I finally found one product that could detect it (PREVX), but when it tried to remove it, it completely hosed my computer, making it totally unbootable.

So then I had to restore my computer back to the manufacturer's original OS - (XP SP1), losing 4 years of updates. And wouldn't you know it--I STILL had the stinkin' virus!

Finally I managed to get rid of it. I'm not entirely sure how. But it involved an awful lot of trickery using a combination of Recovery Mode and restoring good pieces of the registry in Recovery Mode (not an easy thing to do!) and unlocking and deleting suspicious DLLs. I found at least 7 in the end.

Finally, I got it up and running and spent the rest of the night restoring it back to XP SP3. Now, less than 24 hours later, I got ANOTHER virus! Holy smokes! I can't believe it. This one McAfee detects (some of), but can't quarantine or remove.

Part of the virus is AntiVirus 2009 (which is not really an anti-virus, but an evil trojan). I've disabled most of it, but some of it is still hidden away in places I do not know.

Spybot S&D's resident portion was able to detect the foul move to update the registry, but when I denied the update, somehow, the virus managed to do it anyway, modifying my startup routine to force the load of the virus on boot-up. For a while, my browser was locked into going only to Amazon.com no matter what I typed in. It also caused the resident portions of McAfee to crash and kept main program of Spybot S&D from starting. Again, I managed to restore a good registry, and then tried to go back to a known restore point, but that failed. It seemed to work well enough to get rid of whatever portion had hijacked my explorer.exe and other critical pieces of the OS that aren't part of the registry. But I'm not sure yet how much of the virus is left over.

Before this latest round, I had re-checked all my security and javascript settings, and they were all good, but somehow this one got in through a rogue javascript containing the virus/trojan that McAfee and SpyBot both allowed to download and start. Very frustrating.

I'm re-running the latest McAfee, Spybot S&D, Stinger, and PrevxCSI. So far no luck, but it's not over yet. McAfee just released another update, which I can't seem to download. But I'm going to keep trying.

And yes, I know that everything I just said means absolutely nothing to 99% of the people who will ever read this. But anyhoo....

UPDATE: Just a brief update in case somebody stumbles on this and having the same problem as I did. Three things have really helped:

1) Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware has been the only thing to detect and properly remove the malware I had. And it's free to boot. w00t!

2) The principal cause of my infections is shady javascript and/or java that downloaded, without my permission, their programs and ran them. How they were able to do this without violating every java and javascript security policy, I don't know. Doesn't matter. What seems to be helping now is a FireFox Addon called NoScript. By default it blocks everything. So, it is a bit of a pain to teach NoScript was to allow or not allow. But it's pretty easy to allow, block, permanently allow, and permanently revoke the ability for scripts to run. So far I am liking it.

3) I now have a complete copy of my registry in an accessible place that makes it far easier to restore my registry in recovery mode if I have to. Why Windows makes it so impossible to restore the registry in recovery mode, I don't know. But at least I have it. Here's a website that taught me how.

Weekend

Dean sang a solo at church this morning -- Mary Did You Know. He was quite good, especially since he only got one 20-minute practice with the accompanist yesterday. I didn't realize how good he sings, because I can't hardly hear him when he's in the choir. He sang while another church member did a liturgical painting. All-in-all, a very good service.

Later on today, we're going to go out and watch a matinee and then head over to Target to get some dog food.

Update: Looks like Tammy recorded it. Dean's singing in the background. The painter is Staci Ashcraft. The accompanist is Gary Keller.

Sunset over Kansas 12/19/08

A Christmas Carol

For the third year in a row, Dean and I are going to see A Christmas Carol at Spencer Theatre. This year, we are taking Dean's mom and her partner with us for the first time. It's gonna be fun!

Maddoff is no big deal...

By now we know that Maddoff was running the world's biggest Ponzi scheme for 13 years AFTER SEC officials were alerted to him by whistleblowers with mountains of evidence.

It's way bigger than Enron (about $14 million), to tune of between $30 and $50 Billion (with a B). But somehow, it's no big deal. Just one big shrug. We've been here before. We're already in a world of hurt, what's one more? Maybe if the economy hadn't collapsed so completely that the Federal Government is handing out bonds at 0% interest, this would be more shocking.

But somehow it's not. Somehow we knew that all the legislation passed after Enron wouldn't make a difference. And it hasn't.

So that's laissez-faire capitalism at work. Frankly, I'm ready for some socialism.

Dawn over Kansas 12/19/08

Obama invites Rick Warren to give a prayer

So apparently Obama has invited pop-pastor Rick Warren to offer a prayer during the inaugural. And certain liberal bloggies are going absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth insane about it.

Some mistakenly think that Warren is nothing more than Dobson-lite (I don't think so, but he's certainly still in evangelical-land). Others point out Warren's support of Prop 8 as the reason why he's a completely unacceptable choice to give a freakin prayer.

What I don't understand is why people continue to think that Obama is more liberal than he is (which also goes for his chosen Cabinet too). Obama went on Warren's show--(er, church service), was anti-gay marriage, pro-Prop 8, pro civil unions (as Warren is [sort of-he took it back]), and praised Warren's work. I see Obama as moving in more or less lock-step with his stated positions. But somehow, some folks in the blogosphere are expecting Obama to act like Dennis Kucinich. Time to wake up. No matter who said so, Obama has never been the most liberal senator in Congress.

Muslim Arrested Over Head Scarf In Courtroom

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A head scarf landed a Muslim woman in jail Tuesday after she refused to remove it during a hearing at the Douglasville Municipal Court.Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, 40, was arrested for 'violating a court policy of no headgear', Chris Womack, deputy chief of operations for the Douglasville Police Department said on Wednesday.


This just blows my mind. If this is not a violation of this woman's civil rights, I don't know what is. As I understand it, ordering a Muslim woman to take off her hijab is like ordering a Christian woman to take her blouse and bra off. Surely this woman's religious obligation to where a hijab is greater than the judge's right to set court policy.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Seriously! It's like -8 degrees with the windchill. Burrrrr!!!

Most Notable Quotations of 2008

Author Fred R. Shapiro's

Most Notable Quotations of 2008

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300107982

1. "I can see Russia from my house!" — Sarah Palin on her foreign-policy credentials, as satirized by Tina Fey, NBC "Saturday Night Live" broadcast, Sept. 13, 2008

2. "All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years." — Sarah Palin responding to Katie Couric's asking her to specifically name newspapers or magazines she reads, CBS News interview, Oct. 1, 2008

3. "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." — Phil Gramm on Americans concerned about the economy, quoted in Washington Times, July 10, 2008

4. "It's not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number." — Treasury spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout, quoted on Forbes.com, Sept. 23, 2008

5. "The fundamentals of America's economy are strong." — John McCain, interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg TV, Apr. 17, 2008

6. "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." — Department of the Treasury's proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Sept. 2008

7. "Maybe 100." — John McCain on how many years U.S. troops could remain in Iraq, response at town hall meeting, Derry, N.H., Jan. 3, 2008

8. "I'll see you at the debates, bitches." — Paris Hilton, video responding to John McCain ad attacking Barack Obama as a celebrity, Aug. 2008

9. "At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he [Barack Obama] says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have." — Barney Frank, remark to consumer advocates, Dec. 4, 2008

10. (tie) "Cash for trash." — Paul Krugman on the financial bailout, New York Times, Sept. 22, 2008

10. (tie) "There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises." — Paul Krugman, interview by Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time" broadcast, Sept. 19, 2008

One Solitary Life

OneSolitaryLifeMovie.com

Speechless

A short film (18 min) about a man with cerebral palsy taking a speech class.

Big man loses big weight

This was an interesting story to listen to. I like the fact that the man went to China and got into a program that didn't allow him to cheat.

I recently watched a documentary about 6 different obese men and women who went into programs like this in America and in the U.K., but in every case, they all had opportunities to cheat, and so they continued to gain weight even in the inpatient setting. Some had spouses/significant others who brought them food, sabotaging their progress. Some were able to call for delivery Chinese or pizza, etc. And the program directors basically took the position that whatever the patient wants to do, they can do.

NAE's Richard Cizik resigns

"WASHINGTON — A top evangelical leader has resigned his post following an uproar over a recent interview when he said he supports civil unions for gays.

The National Association of Evangelicals says the Rev. Richard Cizik quit Thursday as the group's representative in Washington.

The announcement follows Cizik's Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program. Cizik said on the show that he backs same-sex civil unions and made other comments that the evangelical group says don't reflect their values.

Cizik had already made enemies of some evangelical leaders because of his high-profile fight against global warming."

Richard Cizik was also one of the signatories on that bogus NYT Prop 8 ad I mentioned earlier.

On NPR, Cizik said, “I’m shifting, I have to admit,” the Rev. Richard Cizik told NPR. “In other words, I would willingly say that I believe in civil unions. I don’t officially support redefining marriage from its traditional definition, I don’t think.”

I have to admit, I don't get the semantic thing about "civil union" vs. "marriage". And I think the whole idea of a "traditional definition of marriage" is entirely bogus anyway. There is no such thing. Marriage has been constantly redefined over and over again. And in the 10-12th centuries, you could find a sacrament of gay marriage in the catholic liturgy.

Anyway, it sucks that Rich Cizik has lost his job.

Ho hum (tm)

A pretty ordinary day today. Got crabby at work because I deployed an update to the corporate website that brought the site down for a couple of minutes after hours (as it always does). Coincidentally, another group working on a separate problem was using my website as a passthru to their system. When my site went down for those 2 minutes, they freaked. So I "got in trouble" for not informing them of the deployment (which is not in my procedure to do anyway, but now I have to). So, now I have to add 4 more people to the list of 6 groups that I already notify when I deploy an update. And I can almost guarantee that the next time I deploy, one of those 4 people will write back to me asking why I'm telling them.

In other news, Dean and I had a yummy dinner that we made together--Guava and Rosemary glazed chicken with saffron and currant rice.

And I am STILL procrastinating from working on Souljourners. I am at least 3 papers and 2 books behind now. I am just not motivated right now to work on it.

Jon Stewart & Mike Huckabee

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Soul Care: The Gift of the Word-Made-Flesh

So I just got back from presenting the latest Soul Care retreat at church. This week's theme was The Gift of the Word-Made-Flesh. I began with the blessing Beannacht by John O'Donohue. Then I showed the short film Ousmane. After a brief discussion of people's reactions to the film, we ended with an adaptation of a litany of the Word Made Flesh by Joyce Rupp.

There were more people this week than last week, even though a couple of people from last week could not be there this time.

I think it went reasonably well, but there was something missing. I'm really not sure what that something was.

The second session had no attendees, so I left early. It didn't have attendees because the people who were in it last week were in their prior meeting 20 minutes longer than usual.

Next week will be the Gift of Story.

Sick

Have not been feeling good today. It started after lunch. I originally thought that my lunch made me sick, but I realized later that it was my kidney acting up. Late in the afternoon I was really feeling awful.

I took some meds (antibiotics and vicodin for the pain) and I feel a whole lot better. I spent a bunch of time watching some short films from Spiritual Cinema and reading I Am Legend. The two shorts I watched were Ousmane and The Elephant's Egg.

Ousmane is a story about an illiterate African orphan who goes around town blessing people in exchange for alms. At the end, all the money he gets from alms he gives to a man to type a letter to Santa Claus asking for blessings on the people who gave him money. It's a very cool short. I can't find Ousmane online, but here's The Elephant's Egg, a very surreal film about a man's pursuit of love.

They're Lining Up

"The telecommunications industry is racing to persuade the incoming Obama administration to add as much as $33 billion in government incentives to an economic stimulus package that could be enacted soon after Inauguration Day."

...

by David Hatch from National Journal Online

Yup, the industries are just lining up to get a piece of the free pie. First banks, Second autos, Third telecom. Fourth, I predict, will be major hospitals. They are already tapping on the doors of the states, and the states are pointing them to Congress.

This bailout is such a big mess. I really hate it. And I really hate how Joe Blow taxpayer is getting nothing but a poke in the eye.

Change to blog appearance

As you can see, I've changed the background of the blog. For some reason, I was starting to have a hard time reading the text with it black. So I'm going to be experimenting with some changes. Let me know what you think.

Ron Sider and Prop 8

One of my favorite books on social justice is Ron Sider's "Rich Christians In an Age of Hunger." It is simply one of the best books ever on the Christian call to help the poor.

And so I was really sad to read that Ron Sider is on the wrong side of Prop 8, and signed a bogus NYT ad decrying the “violence and intimidation being directed against the LDS or ‘Mormon’ church” by opponents of Propostion 8, and specifically tying AIDS to homosexuality (even whilst denying making that tie).

I never would have thought to read Ron Sider's name next to William A. Donohue's. Other signers, like Chuck Colson and Roger Scruton I understand (although Chuck Colson has not had kind things to say about the LDS church, so there is a certain hypocrisy there).

Oh well. Moving on....

Patented Genes

Hey, did you know that private companies can patent your genes? I didn't. But apparently so.

I want to get a patent for the gene that makes blue eyes. That way, anybody who dares to have blue eyes will have to pay me money.

"You can't fix stupid." -- Ron White

This American Life

Been listening, at Michael's suggestion, to the latest This American Life, which is about Carlton Pearson. This is a pentecostal preacher who stopped believing in hell (or, more accurately, in the traditional teaching of hell), and embraced a kind of universalism.

There are many things that interest me about this story. Here's just one:
T.D. Jakes, one of Carlton Pearson's proteges, criticized Carlton as a heretic. But what is interesting to me about that is that T.D. Jakes is non-trinitarian (he appears to believe in modalism).

So, Carlton Pearson disbelieves in hell, which makes absolutely no appearance in the Nicene Creed, or any creed of the early church, save for one word in the Apostolic Creed ("he [Jesus] descended into hell"), completely loses his flock and is trashed regularly for a year or more in conservative magazines to which his flock subscribes and bookstores that his flock shops, and is widely and openly criticized by prominent pastors, eventually losing his church.

But T.D. Jakes denies a fundamental tenet of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity, denies the Nicene Creed (as well as the Apostolic, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds), and yet is considered the most influential black pastor in America with a flock of 25,000+.

WHY?

UPDATE:Here's a second reaction. One of the things that the interviewees talk about is how -- now that they are on the other side -- how insensitive they were to other people's faiths. Now that they have people who walk up to them and tell them that they are going to hell because they go to Carlton Pearson's church, they understand how insensitive they were to other people when THEY were the ones who went up to "non-believers" and told them that they were going to hell unless they believed what they wanted them to believe.

UPDATE 2: A third observation: I see again why God provides a Dark Night. I very much identify with Carlton Pearson's statement that said that if he KNEW where he would end up, what pain he would go through, when he started, he wouldn't have done it. So thank God for the dark night, for the mystery, for the cloud of unknowing which leads us where we would not want to go, until we get there.

CA Trip - Day 4 - Disneyland

I finally got my pictures from Disneyland put up. Disneyland was awesome. Perfect weather. Not too crowded. But definitely much more crowded than SeaWorld was. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride seemed to be the one that was the most "ornate" in terms of animatronics and so-forth.

But my two favorite rides were the Haunted Mansion, which was done up for Christmas (according to Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas) and the Winnie the Pooh Ride.

We didn't see very many characters out and about. No Mickey, Minny, Goofy, or Donald. Maybe they come out later in the day. We spent all day there, but we left before sundown and so we missed the fireworks.

The only thing I didn't like was the cost of the food. It was OUTRAGEOUS. A turkey sandwich with a tiny side of baked beans (about 1/2 oz) and a personal size pizza cost $40. Ouch!!

I wasn't able to take too many pictures just because the situations I was in didn't allow it (the rides just go too fast to be able to snap pictures). But I tried on a few occasions and got a couple of decent shots.

I found a video on YouTube about the Haunted Mansion. It's really worth a watch.

Weekend

Busy weekend. On Friday, Dean and I were treated for dinner for our birthdays by Michael at Free State Brewery. Yum! Late night though--we didn't get home until midnight. That's waaay past my bedtime!

Saturday Dean and I went Christmas shopping, then in the evening we saw Madagascar 2 at the theatre. Much fun! The plot was nothing like what I expected, but was still nice. And the animation just keeps getting better. Plenty of funny lines.

This evening we're going with Dean's mom and partner to Christmas Vespers at Baldwin UMC. Dean once performed in this annual event when we went to college at Baldwin. But this is the first year that his mom is seeing it.

Russian Orthodoxy

I read today that the leader of the Russian Orthodox church died.

And that reminded me of a time a year or so ago that I visited an Orthodox church for a vespers service. Boy was it strange! It wasn't a mass, but rather a week day vespers. So I knew that it would be mostly psalms and probably a reading or two and perhaps some intercessions.

What I didn't realize was that I wouldn't be able to participate.

Here's what happened. The priest stood at a podium with 3 women (one with small children in tow) and they all chanted psalms from a large office book. They used a tuning fork to get the right pitch (and they were absolutely spot on). But what was most interesting is how fast they were chanting! They were literally chanting the words as fast as they could possibly go. And when they got done with one psalm, they didn't pause for reflection as they do in the Benedictine monastery, they just went right on to the next one.

After a 20 minutes of listening to chants going at a frenetic pace, I realized that I was not going to be able to participate in any meaningful way in this service, and I was literally the only other person there, so I just got up and left.

Some day I still hope to go to a large Orthodox church for mass.

Proposition 8 The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Soul Care

I hosted the first Soul Care: 30 Minute Retreats yesterday evening at St. Paul's UCC, our temporary space while we're recovering from the church fire.

I planned 3 short meditations:
1) how our parents influenced who we are
2) how we have a message and a gift for the world
3) how God has been shaping us

sandwiched between opening and closing prayers and song.

It went reasonably well. I did it twice, once at 6:30 and once at 7:30 (well, actually 7:45).

The meeting space was good--spacious with plenty of seating, and I think I was able to create an intimate space with a small altar, comfortable music and scented candles. But the noise was rather disruptive. This was especially true in the second one, when the children were done with their program and were basically running around unsupervised. Coupled with the noise from the practicing choir, and a couple of adults having a very audible argument in the next room, it was very hard to shut out the noise and focus on the meditation. At least one of the participants reported having to cover her ears with her hands.

The first one had about 6 participants, all from our church. The second had 5, all from St. Paul UCC church. None of the people who I thought were going to attend the 7:30 did, so I am very thankful that the UCCers showed up.

I talked with Michael afterwards, and he suggested that my group switch rooms with his, which is in a more remote part of the church. Plus it has a TV, so I would have a way to show a short film (which I want to do in the 3rd session).

Fires

When Dean and I were on vacation in CA, about 5 separate fires raged throughout southern CA. We experienced mostly smoke and falling ash. On that Friday, Mount Calvary Monastery, an Episcopal Benedictine monastery (Order of the Holy Cross) burned down to the ground. Here is all that is left:

Work

Work has been incredibly busy. I've been busier these last 2 weeks than I have been the last 2 months. I've had weeks of work piled on me that all has to get done right now. Very stressful!

The good news is that I got most of the hardest stuff done today.

Obama's picks

So...I was impressed by Obama's economic picks. He really seemed to be focused on getting the best minds on the job.

Less impressed by Clinton at State, Gates at Defense, and Richardson at Commerce. Those seem fundamentally political nods instead of the best people for the job. And I'm worried about the egos.