I read this quote by Thomas Merton this morning and really liked it.

Is there any vestige of truth left in our declaration that we think for ourselves? Or do we even trouble to declare this any more? Perhaps the man who says he “thinks for himself” is simply one who does not think at all; because he has no fully articulate thoughts, he thinks he has his own incommunicable ideas. Or thinks that, if he once set his mind to it, he could have his own thoughts. But he just has not got around to doing this. I wonder if “democracies” are made up entirely of people who “think for themselves” in the sense of going around with blank minds which they imagine they could fill with their own thoughts if need be.
Well, the need has been desperately urgent, not for one year or ten, but for fifty, sixty, seventy, a hundred years. If, when thought is needed, nobody does any thinking, if everyone assumes that someone else is thinking, then it is clear that no one is thinking either for himself or for anybody else. Instead of thought, there is a vast, inhuman void full of words, formulas, slogans, declarations, echoes – ideologies! You can always reach out and help yourself to some of them. You don’t even have to reach at all. Appropriate echoes already rise up in your mind – they are “yours.” You realize of course that these are not yet “thoughts.” Yet we “think” these formulas, with which the void in our hearts is provisionally entertained, can for the time being “take the place of thoughts” – while the computers make decisions for us.

A few months ago I critiqued a book on this blog by Susan Jacoby called The Age of American Unreason. My assertion was that the author’s idea that Americans’ use of common language was a signal that Americans were getting dumber. For Jacoby, there seemed to be a correlation between the use of the word “folks” and the corporate IQ of the nation. I found that absurd.

So it may seem like a reversal now that I quote Merton saying the same sort of thing here. The thing is, when I first picked up Jacoby, I expected her to be onto something. I sensed, for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, that America is getting dumber. I’ve sensed this for some time. It just seems like we are not a society of thinkers. Certainly not deep thinkers. I don’t have any real evidence to prove this suspicion. And I further suspect that if I were a better thinker I would have the capacity to identify some examples and articulate my point. But I think no one thinks. I suspect that less than half of the people I know generate original, critical thought on any regular basis (if you’re my friend and you’re reading this please assume you’re in the thoughtful minority).

But my duplicity is justified, I think, and not just because I have a lot more invested in Merton’s writings than in Jacoby’s, because I think Merton’s point is less about education and more about contemplation. Our Sunday school class this week was about margin – how in our finances and schedules we Americans have come to live without margin – without any room for error or rest. We heard Andy Stanley teach that good relationships happen in the margins, and I would assert that original thought happens there too. I don’t have time to think critically about things when I’m running from one meeting to the next.

And our whole society is like that because we’ve come to equate busy-ness with significance. If you’re an important person, you must be busy. I wonder if all of the important people in our government are too busy to think and “letting the computers make decisions.” I can’t imagine how my clients would react if I gave them an invoice with a line charge for “thinking time.”

And as I write these words, I’m running late so I have to stop. I suspect that there is more to think about here, but I don’t have time for it.

Gratitude

Just read a chapter in Erwin McManus's book Uprising about gratitude. McManus is kind-of wordy, but I've quoted a long portion of the chapter below because it's pretty insightful about how gratitude, forgiveness, optimism and wholeness are linked...

Forgiveness and gratitude are inseparable. When we receive forgiveness, we grow in gratefulness. When we grow in gratefulness, we are more willing to give forgiveness. Our ability to receive forgiveness is directly related to our willingness to give it. Beyond that our model for forgiveness is Jesus himself. Paul reminds us, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

When we are grateful, we forgive freely. A direct benefit of gratitude is the freedom from bitterness. When we are grateful, we are not bound to grudges or vengeance. Gratitude enables us to be generous with love. Forgiveness is a significant part of this. When there is a deficit of love, there is also a reluctance to forgive. This is a significant dilemma for us in our journeys toward emotional well-being in that an unwillingness to forgive will circumvent the process of becoming whole.

In the same way that gratitude is intertwined with forgiveness, brokenness is often perpetuated by bitterness. It’s not that bitterness is the cause of our brokenness, but that bitterness will circumvent the healing process. What makes this even more complicate is that oftentimes a broken person is more than justified to be embittered. Sometimes when I hear the tragic stories and the horrific experiences others have gone through, it’s hard not to take on their offenses and become embittered with them. It’s not an easy thing to tell someone who has been deeply hurt that her own road to healing is to forgive those who hurt her.

Aside from the fact that offenders need forgiveness, to forgive is essential in the process of healing. You cannot remain embittered and find wholeness. Even when those who have hurt you neither seek forgiveness nor desire it, it is still necessary that we forgive. In a reminder that we should not grieve the spirit of God, the Scriptures call us to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Eph. 3:31-32). This passage beseeches us to replace bitterness with forgiveness. In a conversation between Peter and Simon the Sorcerer, Peter makes this assessment of Simon’s heart: “I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin” (Acts 8:23). When we forgive, it sets us and others free. Bitterness on the other hand holds us captive. When someone desires forgiveness, it is your gift to give out of the generosity of your spirit. Even if one does not desire your forgiveness, it is critical to be free from the bitterness that will enslave you.

Again, even as gratitude and forgiveness are inseparable, so are ungratefulness and bitterness. When we are grateful, we see and experience life with a healthy optimism. When we lack gratitude, we move toward pessimism and even cynicism. A ungrateful heart always see what’s wrong with life. The longer we live without gratitude, the more embittered we become. The more embittered we become, the more we find ourselves overwhelmed with depression. Bitterness in the end leads to hopelessness. If we are to enjoy lives of gratitude, we must break free from the gravitational pull of bitterness. For in the same way that gratitude leads to wholeness, bitterness will leave us shattered and broken. In this condition we will find ourselves unable to experience the life God dreams for us, and tat the same time we will leave others cut and bleeding as they press against our sharp edges.

Bitterness creates an illusion of control and power. Bitterness is a form of hate. It is anger facing backwards. When we are embittered toward someone, we hold him prisoner to an experience or action in the past. In our minds our bitterness hold him captive and does not allow him to move forward. The reality is that our bitterness traps no one but ourselves. If the offender genuinely seeks forgiveness, even when you are unwilling to give it, he or she is made free. The only person you keep trapped in yesterday when you are unwilling to forgive is yourself. If you remain bitter long enough, you will eventually move to despair. Bitterness requires that you live in the past; hope requires that you live for tomorrow. Gratitude not only allows you to enjoy the present, but keeps you looking forward to the future.

Contagious Laughter

In 1962, there was an outbreak of contagious laughter that infected hundreds of people and forced several schools to close in Tanzania and Uganda. I am not making this up. Read about it here or here.
Also, this is pretty funny:

If you've ever called for a point of order in church...

Christine and I invented a new comedy series this week that is sure to have evangelicals rolling in the aisles soon - and not from the Holy Ghost. With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy, let us suggest a few ways to know if you're a Southern Baptist.

• If you've ever done anything "in view of a call", you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've ever been upset about changing the name from "potluck" to "covered dish", you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If your church posts attendance on a big wooden board, you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've never sung a third verse, you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've ever asked God to bless "the gift and the giver", "this food and the hands that prepared it," or "this food to the nourishment of our bodies and our bodies to your service", you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've ever moved your letter, you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've ever voted in church, you might be a Southern Baptist.
• If you've ever checked a box verifying that you prayed, memorized scripture or brought your Bible to church, you might be a Southern Baptist.

These are the ones I can remember but there have got to be more. So jump in everyone! Let's get the "you might be a Southern Baptist" comedy series up and flying.

My one baseball post for the year

Ok, I'm not a baseball fan, but I listen to sports radio all the time and I haven't heard anyone make this point, so I'm going to make it.
Has anyone ever heard of major league baseball doing so many wacky things in preseason?

• Billy Crystal a Yankee for a day
• Opening day game in Japan
• And now some crazy game in LA with a left field fence about 3 steps behind the third baseman.

I just wondered if this looks like a desperate PR scramble to anyone but me: "Please forget Roger Clemens (et al) and think about Billy Crystal! He can't play, but at least now we can say that the league has one player who isn't juiced!

A Folksy Review

Christine and I had a "nerd date" this week. That's where we go to Borders and each pick out a book and a comfy chair. We read for about 10 minutes and then discuss what we read. Do we know how to party or what?

Anyway, this time I picked a book called The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. The jacket said Americans are dumber than ever before and I have watched enough Jay Walking to think that might be true. But, it turns out, that's not Jacoby's point. Her point, as far as I could tell, is that we must be dumb because we elected a Republican president.

Admittedly, I only read the book for 10 minutes but I got a pretty good idea of Jacoby's thesis - enough to make me want to write a negative review. So here is a poorly-researched, yet passionately-delivered pan of The Age of American Unreason...

I started in Chapter 1 (why not?) where Jacoby laments about the "dumbing down" of public discourse. She uses the example of the word "folks" and points out how "folks" is used by news anchors and politicians and presidents with regularity and impunity. Jacoby thinks our society's use of colloquial language is proof of its ignorance. She asks us to image Abe Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson using a word like "folks."

I think Jacoby is absolutely right that American discourse has gotten considerably more informal and redundant in the past century. I don't think, for instance, that anyone among the current crop of presidential candidates really has anything new to say or says it with particularly powerful prose. But I don't think that's proof of an Ignorant America. Poor standardized test scores - falling American wages - these may be evidence of Americans becoming less educated. "Folks" is evidence of Americans becoming less formal.

So I skipped ahead to about the middle of the book to see if Jacoby would warm up to a more salient point. She didn't. Instead, she spent a few pages railing on Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia (hmm, a conservative. whadya know?) and his position on the law (did I mention he's on the Supreme Court?) and God (he's also a Christian).

Jacoby disagreed with Scalia's idea that the authority to govern, while of course must involve at least tacit approval from those governed, ultimately comes from God. Then Jacoby attacks Scalia's comments about capital punishment. She quotes a speech in which Scalia said that the more Christian a society is, the less problem it has with the death penalty because, to Christians, death is "no big deal." Jacoby found this appalling on the grounds that it would, indeed, be a big deal for those in such a society who aren't Christian. But wait - didn't Jacoby just argue that authority to govern arises solely from those governed? And in an imaginary country where the majority of those governed are Christians who support the death penalty, aren't they entitled to establish government in whatever manner they see fit? By arguing in the negative, isn't Jacoby appealing to some higher law than majority vote and therefore shooting her previous argument in the foot?

Those are the only two points I read and then it was time to hear about Christine's travel book (we've gotta check out Kilimanjaro!) Bottom line: I doubt that folks who think critically will enjoy reading Susan Jacoby.