Author: Glen

So I Was Pooping The Other Day

So I was pooping the other day and Dana came and started talking to me through the bathroom door. She asked to come in and I explained that Daddy needed his privacy. So she sat down outside the bathroom door and tried to peek through the gap beneath it.

When I flushed the toilet Dana began cheering and clapping.

“Daddy went in the big girl potty! Good job, Daddy”

Oddly enough, it made me feel proud of myself.

The Problem With Prayer Studies

I mentioned this to my students last night at Chi Alpha’s weekly meeting and I thought I’d pass it along here as well: there have been a whole series of double-blind studies on prayer, some of which show that prayer is potent and others which fail to demonstrate any benefit. Why such widely varying results? Because prayer studies are ridiculously difficult to construct, as highlighted by this humorous article from Scrappleface.

(2006–03-31) — A team of scientists today ended a 10-year study on the so-called “power of prayer” by concluding that God cannot be manipulated by humans, not even by scientists with a $2.4 million research grant.

The scientists also noted that their work was “sabotaged by religious zealots” secretly praying for study subjects who were supposed to receive no prayer.

There are just too many independent variables. How can you know that the control group is actually receiving no prayer? How can you be sure that the people who are praying are praying with faith? With the right faith? In the right God?

And then, of course, there is THE Independent Variable. What if, as the article suggests, God simply chooses not to be our lab rat?

I’m sure some clever scientists will someday figure out how to isolate the variables more meaningfully, but for now the studies tell us much less than the media would have us believe. 

And for the record, it’s the media to blame for the hype. I’m sure the scientists are making appropriately cautious claims. Scientists almost always do.

Delightful Communications

The response to my April Wisdom post was every bit as wonderful as I had hoped.

Only one person commented on the blog, but we got several more “live” communications. My personal favorite: a voicemail message that said, among other things, “I thought we had a deal.”

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Anyway, the anwers are:
Glen bald — TRUE
Paula pregant — TRUE
House purchased — HAH

Counsel To A Student

I recently responded to a student who was trying to muddle through an awkward relationship without becoming bitter. She asked for some counsel, and here is an anonymized version of what I told her. The pain she is experiencing is common enough, and so I post it here in the hopes that it will prove helpful to someone else as well.

You have already said that you are praying and so I will move on to other considerations. There are several practical things you can do. 

The first is to realize that you cannot avoid being hurt. You have no more choice in that than you have when falling off a cliff. Physically, if you get in a fight then your jaw will probably be sore regardless of who wins. Emotionally, it is unlikely that you’ll come out of a relational meltdown without at least the equivalent of a sore jaw. Just as in boxing, however, you can choose whether you’ll get hit in the face or the stomach. Where you are struck is based upon your guard, so block the blows that matter and absorb the ones you must. 

Practically, this is a matter of where you pin your hopes. If you pin your hopes upon romantic recommitment, then that is where you are most vulnerable to being hurt. If you pin your hopes to renormalization of friendship, then that is where you are most vulnerable to being hurt. The pain of dashed romance is generally considered to be far more intense than the pain of an awkward friendship, but you must choose your own course in this.

As an aside, I’m not so sure that “guarding your heart” in the Bible is about preventing painful emotions (which seems to be the way that it is most often preached–if you can just guard your heart sufficiently then you can avoid being hurt). Jesus and Paul both experienced much pain caused by other people. Jesus was betrayed by Judas and wept when Mary and Martha blamed him for the death of Lazarus, Paul was abandoned by virtually all of his friends when in prison and wept when he left the Ephesian elders to head towards his fate in Jerusalem. Guarding their heart didn’t prevent them from experiencing pain. I think we can fairly say that it reduced the amount of the pain that they felt, and it certainly helped them to surmount pain. But it did not prevent pain. That’s a very Buddhist notion which just doesn’t fit into the Christian faith. Buddhists detach, Christians love. And love always seems to involve a certain measure of pain.

The second is to listen to your mind more than your heart. Pretend this was happening to one of your friends and then pretend to give them some advice. I’m sure you would have wise counsel for them–so be sure to take your own medicine. Your emotions are going to be very poor guides up this particular mountain. At the same time you cannot afford to ignore them completely–your emotions are the source of your pain. Ignoring them completely is as foolish as a doctor ignoring your symptoms when diagnosing you.

The third is to believe that your friend is not intentionally trying to hurt you. This is a crucial defense against bitterness. He is making a lot of choices that are causing you pain, but he is not making them because they cause you pain. He wants you to be happy and is just as confused as you are about how to achieve that goal. 

And so if that’s helpful to you, take it and be blessed.ghost dog the way of the samurai divx