Joe's Thoughts

Gambling

2011-11-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been going down to the Commerce Casino a lot. I've noticed that with all this time on my hands I've spent more time down there. I've gone back and forth on whether or not I should really gamble. I'm trying to ask the Lord for some direction on the issue. Last night on the walk back I felt as if he was displeased with my decision to go. I've never really felt good about going - like, "Wow, that was a great idea" - so I guess all in all that might answer my question. All I can say is that there really is a rush in going.

One thing that I've found really relaxes me is walking. I was thinking the other day about the things that bring us joy versus the things that bring us excitement. I don't know if excitement is bad, but sometimes I feel like there's an addictive quality to excitement - meaning that it's able to remove us from whatever our minds are dwelling on at the time, and it really feels good. Sex is exciting. Gambling is exciting. So is candy. I don't know if something being exciting is bad in and of itself, but that is part of the reason I enjoy gambling, the thrill of it. Also because it's a sort of game. Kind of like Settlers of Catan.

I dropped by the casino the other day and lost $120. One of the hands I lost was due to a bad beat, but it doesn't matter. I knew I shouldn't have gone. As soon as I stepped inside, I realized how lost we all were. We were addicted to the game, hoping we would win the other people's money, willing to pay the $3 rake per pot plus any tips that are customary for the dealer. I felt guilty being there.

Life Since Leaving my Job

2011-09-27T18:49:00.001-07:00

July 12 was my last day of employment at Fuller Theological Seminary where I had worked for over seven years as, first, a programmer, then in a more expanded role managing their database of student (past and present), alumni, vendor, and donor data. I enjoyed working there and had the freedom to most, of what I thought was necessary for getting the job done. Some ideas I had for the organization as a whole were only ideas, things I never really pushed for, like discouraging the proliferation of wireless, limiting the disbursement of personal computers to staff, limiting access to the Internet, favoring Linux installations over Windows. I often wonder whether or not I should have spent more time advocating these ideas, rather than remaining passive. The main thrust of my energy, from an organizational perspective, was to limit our involvement in other offices' problems - except for certain offices, like Field Education, which were understaffed already and could use any help that they could get, or offices like the Parking Office where I believed I could offer a better, cheaper, less complex service in place of what they were using already. With these offices I would try to involve myself whenever possible.

Was it a good decision to quit? I felt at the time as if it was my only real choice, all things considered. I could have negotiated for fewer hours, and I probably should have, but I didn't want to be put in a position of having to ask for something. I did consider reapplying for a position that was created after I had submitted my resignation letter, but before July 12, in the hopes that I could negotiate with my supervisor to make that job one that I occupy for less than forty hours per week, but he told me my chances were even less in getting that to happen given that I would be asking that as a prospective, not current, employee.

As my dad would say, what's done is done, and there's not point in thinking what I could have done differently. But I'm not my father, and even now, I think about the different ways I could have handled my dilemma - maybe I could have had a talk with my supervisor before I submitted a resignation letter telling him that I really was going to quit, and that I really did need to work twenty hours, and that if he were willing, I'd really appreciate it, and that if not, well, I'd give him the courtesy of telling me when a good quitting date would be. That would be my storybook ending. Instead, one morning I had handed him my resignation letter - a very curt one, less than three sentences - telling him that I really hated to do it, that I had no choice, and that I was very sorry. In return he offered me some kind words expressing his respect for me as a person, but there we were - soon to be non-colleagues looking at each other not knowing what else to say.

There's a part of me that wishes that I could have maximized the experience of having worked for Fuller and having worked for my supervisor. It's the same feeling I felt when I had broken up with the girl I was with before having met my wife Glory. I wonder whether or not the relationship ended prematurely, whether or not I gave it my best, whether or not I was (needlessly) ending something that should have been allowed to flourish with time. I don't have the answers to any of those questions. All I have is that feeling one morning in June when I realized that if I quit everything would still be just fine.

So far I'm not quite sure that everything has been just fine. Sure, Glory has told me that this move has been the best thing for our marriage. She's felt supported at home, that she's been able to spend more quality time with me, and, while she might not have put it this way, she's finally getting the best part of my day, not just the leftovers.

Besides wanting to spend more time with Glory and Jude, I quit my job in the hopes that I could spend more time with my community, with Urban Village. That hasn't happened as much as I thought it would or could. Two of my neighbors, who also don't have full-time jobs, volunteer with the Peace and Justice Academy, so they're often not at home during the day. One of my neighbors also volunteers there and is probably at home more often, though I don't I feel as comfortable calling on her. Other Urban Village members work 40-hour (or close to 40-hour) week jobs, so my being present in the neighborhood doesn't give me any more exposure to them.

One joy of being home, however, has been to work in our yard, digging ditches. Outdoor activity has a way of drawing people to the actor or actress. People on the street will smile at me, maybe even ask me a question about what I'm doing. Urban Village members will stop by to chat for a while. My neighbor who lives in the back will look suspiciously at what I'm doing and nervously ask me if I'm building a moat, hoping that I tell him what I'm really doing, then a few days later ask me, rather directly, So seriously, what are you doing over there?

Spending time with Jude has been mixed. I've been able to take him to Eucharist more often, take him to the park during the daytime, occasionally play with him in his secret closet (as I like to call it). Though he's opened up to me somewhat, he still favors his mother. Ever since his birth he and she have been inseparable. It's sweet in some ways and - honey, forgive me for saying this - sickening in others. I like Jude, but not have as much as he her or as she he.

How should one spend one's time? That's really the question that I've been trying to answer for myself ever since I quit. Gardening, sustainability, community, prayer. These are all really important things. But staying indoors underneath fluorescent light, washing a pile of dishes, half of which I wonder were really necessary for the simple act of eating, and trying to watch my son while my wife is trying to give me instructions can be really fucking annoying! That was the beauty of having a job, I could do my own thing somewhere else.

In all seriousness, though, I've found that live at home really is lonely. We don't have immediate or extended family helping us watch Jude, unless we visit my parents in Upland, which we do by taking a bus that can take anywhere from one to two hours just to get to the bus stop. Nor do we have other families with kids who live near us - actually, I take that back, we do, but either we don't know them, they're kids are older, or they hire a babysitter to watch them. I'd like Jude to be able to spend more time with Lydia, our neighbor, but our roommate, who used to watch Jude as well, is Lydia's babysitter. I still feel a little bit awkward trying to hang out with them, knowing that my quitting my job meant that her income dropped as a result, but it would be great for Jude to have a playmate, as well as for Glory and I to get to know our roommate in that context. We've tried to connect with our ex-neighbor Tracy who has two daughters of her own, but so far no luck. This Thursday Melody, my ex-colleague's wife, should be dropping by to bring Leland.

All this is fine - spending time with other moms or caretakers to share life with children - but it still feels somewhat limited. Like, yeah, that's cool, but we're really not accomplishing anything, just sitting around talking (in the case of adults), and in the case of the children, doing whatever it is that kids do - pulling each others' hair, crawling through empty boxes, playing with Hot Wheels or (Disney) Cars. It's like the main life of the household is still located outside the house - wherever dad is - he's the one earning a living and (supposedly) doing something of real import for society at large. It's not that I think spending time with other people, including our own children is not time well-spent, but I think that that time could be better spent time educating them or including them in our own ventures - whether it be cooking, digging a garden, or whatever it is that we do to make a world a better place. This is my vision for Glory, Jude, and all others we know and who we live near us: to be able to spend time together, to support each other, and to participate in meaningful, life-giving, and life-enhancing activities together - in other words, work.

Making the transition from working at Fuller to being at home has been extremely difficult. At Fuller I could act, for the most part, as if I were single for those eight or nine hours I was at work. I can't do that now. Also, being at Fuller, connected me to a larger group of people, really, an institution, an aspect of the working life which I realize now I took for granted. It's not easy to grow an organization. Working at home, there's just three of us - Jude, Glory, and myself. Sometimes Monte comes by, making it four people. But to have six, seven, or eight people working on something together takes time and luck to make happen. The larger Fuller organization, including regional campuses, is an institution that employs approximately five hundred staff and teaches around three thousand full-time students. Working at Fuller gave me a place to be, both from a geographical perspective (as a seat in an office in a building down the street) as well as a station whose duties I was expected and encourage to fulfill. That's a precious gift. At the request of my supervisor, I remember once analyzing my job and the types of things that most interested me, and I found that most of them didn't involve the types of things that our department was expected to do: carpooling, energy conservation, helping students be more prudent with regards to debt accumulation. All these things I considered important, yet they weren't within my scope of responsibility nor in that of my department. As an aside, I truly believe, that all these things really were the responsibility of everyone who worked at Fuller, but not everyone, certainly not my supervisor, shared that belief. Furthermore, I felt as if the people I really cared about, the people who meant the most to me, were not part of the organization that I served, so that while I might serve the organization and her constituents, doing so would take my presence and time away from those whom I really cared about. It's not that I didn't care about our students - in fact, my wife and one of my house mates were and are students at the seminary - nor was it that I didn't care about fellow staff people, either. It's just that for me to care about my wife and my house mate and other students, I felt we needed to reduce the seminary's excessive costs, much of which resides in IT-related initiatives and upkeep, which in turn pushes their tuition upwards each year. And for me to care more deeply about staff, and to grow in that care, I needed to feel that that that care was mutual and that other staff were interested in investing themselves in me as an individual, enough so that they would make decisions on the job and off that would at times put themselves at risk for my good - in other words, that they would take the steps necessary to be a real friend, not just a work colleague. But most whom I knew at work more more interested in self-preservation than in doing the right thing.

I suppose one way of looking at my life is now is an attempt to answer one of the most fundamental questions an individual can hope to answer: How can I share my life with others whom I care about and who care about me in a meaningful way? What are the types of things I find meaningful? What are the types of things they find meaningful? How can we, together, participate in this meaning?

Regret

2011-06-29T10:42:00.001-07:00

Next to not purchasing the house on Santa Barbara street back in 2004, the biggest regret I have in my life is having septoplasty peformed on me in that same year. For those who don't know what septoplasty is, it's a way of aligning the inner cartilage in the nose so that both air can proceed through both nostrils just as easily. I didn't realize it until I was older, but my left nostril was much more restricted than my right.

I remember thinking about the problem and asking one of my friends, Denise, what she thought about the procedure. She was a nurse, and she gave me the best advice I got at the time, though I was too young and inexperienced to appreciate it: she told me to really make sure that I wanted the surgery because a lot of times procedures aren't as straightforward as they're made out to be. A lot can go wrong, so beware.

I didn't heed her advice. Now I wish I had. I'd read in a book that when performing septoplasty most surgeons remove the microhairs that are responsible for cleaning the air that enters the breathing passageways; I asked my doctor about this before the surgery and he said that he'd try to keep this removal down to a minimum. At that point in time, I should have insisted that I wanted none of those hairs to be removed, but again, I was too trusting, too naive.

Now I have severe problems breathing. My nasal passages are inflamed the majority of the time, and I don't have much recourse. I read somewhere at one point that there are alternative surgeries that can help remedy this, but I'm not one to go to the surgeon's knife twice.

Oddly enough, I've noticed that my passages become more inflamed when I am stressed out or when I've been drinking beer. There is some psychological component to it. I just wish I'd never gotten the surgery done. Life, breathing, was a lot more pleasant before the surgery.

I suppose we all have regrets. I pray that God would restore my breathing. I believe in miracles, though I wish I didn't have to be put in this position in the first place.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Most of us don't do stupid shit to ourselves because we're trying to harm ourselves. At the time I thought I'd be helping myself. I'm sure other people have made stupider decisions. I can't imagine what it would be like to have had an abortion, then regretted it later, or to give my child up for adoption, then wish I hadn't, or had unprotected sex, than have contracted HIV. I can't imagine.

This is part of the reason I'm so against the medical establishment. This is part of the reason why I'm so hesitant to accept anything and everything that a doctor will tell me. Sometimes I think that doctors let their schooling get to their head, they forget that the human body is complex and that not everything we do to it works out for its best interest.

Frugality

2011-06-29T10:05:00.001-07:00

I splurged on a fruit bowl. Here in Palm Springs, it's a little expensive. $5.44 to be exact.

My father used to berate me as a youngster for wanting to spend his money. I guess I can't blame him too much. It was money he had earned after all, and I wasn't exactly contributing much to the upkeep of the household. At some point he wanted me to start doing chores around the house, so I assigned a monetary value to each chore, stored my activities on a database on our Tandy 1000SX then charged him at the end of the week for all the work I'd done. He didn't like that either.

There was really no pleasing him. Looking back on it, I think he had a difficult time communicating to me his values - though, to be fair, I did remember during his calmer moments explaining to me that as a child he had to run a paper route and get up early in the morning which is part of the reason why he resented my staying home in the summertime with nothing to do.

I wonder how I'll be with my own son. This is something I'll have to negotiate with my spouse. So far we haven't bought him too many things. Most parents who have had children our age have been more willing to donate things to us; both my mother and father have bought our son far more than what we would have wanted him to have. It's not that we want to deprive him, it's just that too many things clutter the house - how many toys does a two year old need, anyway?

Being married and frugal carries with it its own challenges. I'll have to sit down with my wife and ask her sometime off she's felt about our marriage and how our money's been spent. She's been patient with me with my always want to direct our finacnes, but I know it's taken a toll on her, and on me as well. It's been difficult to for me to be open to her alternative approaches towards spending money, but I know I would have been the better for it. For the most part I'd say our values are fairly aligned; perhaps our most acute differentiation comes to whether or not to purchase a house. My own history with the housing market, with trying to secure financial security, with what I see as a corrupt market (owning, settling, and building on land should be a right for every person, not a commodity that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder) has caused me to shy away from actively pursuing the purchase of property. I've opened up myself a little bit more to it lately, though I still regret not having purchased a duplex on Santa Barbara street back in 2004 with a friend of mine for $465,000.

I pray for openness to my spouse, to her dreams, her desires, her wants, and her fancies. Maybe that's a good starting point.

Anyone on the block want to sell us their house for under $300,000?

Wealth, Status, and Security

2011-06-28T10:07:00.001-07:00

I've heard of places where people are beaten, women raped, children taken as slaves, all in order to acquire wealth and as an abuse of martial power. I think of scenes from movies like Blood Diamond and Hotel Rwanda -- both of which happen to be set on the African continent -- I think of my friend Mark Crawford who works for an organization in Thailand whose mission is to free women from sex trafficking. Back in the 80's I remember seeing Filipino old and young, via my television, squatting and crowded in some of the poorer parts of their country. It seems that as bad as things are here in the States, as much as we Americans like to complain about the White House, their policies, and how effectively (or ineffectively) those policies are carried out, things are a lot worse on the whole in other nations.

Yet our nation is not without its share of ills. They're a different set, though we, too, have children kidnapped and taken into prostitution, we also have homeless, and we also have people murdered and sent to war overseas to fight and kill and sometimes be killed themselves. Our problem seems to be one of excess consumption, along with the environmental degradation that go along with it, of having too much freedom - especially for a select few - and of using such freedom poorly. Instead of channeling our collective energies towards providing for the needs of our people, physical and otherwise, we've instead adopted an approach of "me-mindedness", focusing on how to make money and how to make more of it than the next guy.

This is my take on America, corporate America. Our nation is one ruled by an oligarchy, an oligarchy of the monetarily wealthy. These wealthy rule through their influence on the government and its policies as well as their domination and subjugation of the human spirit through marketing and its resulting consumerism. What makes us, at the root, susceptible to their power is our own desire for wealth, status, and security. Corporations' stranglehold on American culture have made it more difficult for alternative, more life-promoting, economies to develop.

As I write this, I have two weeks left at my current job at the seminary for which I work. It's private, meaning one can't own stocks in it, and as a legal entity it's not designated by the State of California as a corporation, yet many marks of the modern corporation are to be found in it: the sacrosanct 40-hour work week, the disparities in pay scales, the stratification of the reporting structure, the way in which efficiency and productivity are used as markers to determine our usefuleness as staff members.

In short, corporations, and the mindset instilled by the modern corporation have dominated our lives and livelihood.

I remember one incident as an eight-grader at Pioneer Junior High School in which our teacher, Mr. Chesnut, had asked for a show of hands of all those who planned on attending college. I was the only one in the class with a hand not raised. Mr. Chesnut was shocked and publicly chided me for such a decision. At some intuitive level Mr. Chesnut had associated formal baccalaureate education as a good thing - maybe it was the type of thing that could guarantee me a job or a livelihood - if so, then he was right to chide me, to correct me. But I wonder if at another he assumed, as many of us do now, that getting a formal education was the first step in launching a successful career, and by successful, of course to rise up within the ranks of a corporation, or at least an entity very much patterned after the corporate model. If so, then that moment was an early personal example in which wealth, status, and security are tied to something that can, and is viewed as primarily coming from, a specific structure of economics, namely the corporate system.

I love loyd Dobler's response in the 80s teen flick "Say Anything" when asked by the father of the girl he's in love with about his plans for the future: "Sir, I don't want to process, sell or buy anything. I don't want to sell anything that has been bought or processed. I don't want to buy anything that has been sold or processed. And I don't want to process anything that has been bought or sold." So what options do we have?

What would Americans' lives look like without corporations? What if all we had was private enterprise? No buying stocks, no speculative investing, no mandate to, by any means necessary, keep stock prices rising and rising?

Many of us, I think of one friend in particular, base our financial security on the mutual fund portfolio in our 401K, IRA, or 403b. Our hope is that the prices of the stocks in our portfolio continue rising and that by the time we retire, the amount of money we redeem them for will be a lot more than amount of money that we had used to originally purchase them. It would be an entirely faceless transaction, as our many of our transactions today. We would not care about how the companies in our portfolio acted over the years, whose lives they affected and how - we may not even know about what types of services or goods they provided - all we would really care about is that, in the end, we would have more, rather than less, money.

But this is the very type of thinking that fuels and justifies the behavior of corporations. They know how they are judged by investors in these very simplistic terms. And it is these investors, above all else, whom they cater to. According to one book I recently read, on average only 10% of the money that is spent purchasing stocks actually goes into buying newly issued stock: if ten billion dollars were spent buying stock of a given company only one billion dollars of that ten would actually transfer into the operating budget of the company in question. The rest of that money would simply be money that is moved between buyer and seller, the stock being transferred accordingly, and commission being paid to all middle-men involved. Is it true as some have observed, that it is this subsidiary market that truly drives the decisions of these mammoth organizations, which employ tens of thousands of people and hold tremendous sway over our political system? If so, then it would seem that such a system is susceptible to the types of decisions that would favor being able to record profits, at least from an accounting perspective, over longer-term sustainability and prudence, both in terms of the corporation itself, but perhaps more importantly, for the public good.

Who keeps these corporations accountable? If it is our greed and need for security that keeps these beasts alive, perhaps that is where we best start? How many of us own stock in Fortune 500 companies, either directly through a mutual fund or some type of retirement vehicle? What if we, who are socially conscious, chose to pull out? The truth is that there would be many others to take our place. No, this type of phenomenon, it seems, must be handled in ways that are not limited by monetary clout: yes, it appears as if this is a problem that must be handled by everyday people, by democracy, and by our government.

Thoughts for June 1, 2011

2011-06-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

Love me, don't hate me motherfucker!

I have yet to find a motto or saying tighter than the one above.

Love me, don't hate me. Isn't that what we all want? At the end of the day we all desire to be loved, cared for, appreciated, admired, respected, even adored. And who among us likes to be at the receiving end of ridicule, scorn, suspicion, envy, and hatred? The man who wore this tattoo on the side of his shaved head was one I visited in a Federal prison in downtown Los Angeles. I remember mentioning it to my wife in an offhanded comment once during one of those discussions in which one recaps one's day with another: I was jealous that he could pull something like that off. What if I got the same tattoo, perhaps not on the head as he had done, but, in a slightly tamer fashion, on the forearm? I keep telling her that I want to be famous, that one day I'd like to be interviewed on Bill Maher.

But how would that interview go?

Bill: So Joe, I hear that you call yourself a born-again, theologically and politically progressive, morally conservative Catholic environmentalist, whose sole desire is to connect to the earth and to -- and these are your words -- handle your shitsu. What the hell does that mean?

Joe: Bill, first of all, let me say, at the risk of sounding like a completely starry-eyed fan, that, well, you are my idol - despite the 1st and 2nd commandments.

Bill: Ha ha.

Joe: But I know we don't want to go there on this show because you don't believe in God, do you, you atheist?!

Bill: Agnostic, Joe, agnostic. So getting back to my question, how would you describe your way of life? From what I hear it's somewhat perverse. Tell us more about it.

Joe: Mr. Maher, you're fortunate in that you're able to earn a living doing what you feel is important, exposing political and cultural realities for what they are by way of comedy. In a very real sense you bring light to darkened theater, you speak the truth to your audience. I hope to do the same through a lifestyle of prayer and presence to my neighborhood and to the world.

Bill: But what does all that mean? Does that mean you'll dress up like a monk, become a vegan, and just sit on your lawn all day?

Joe: Actually, Bill, most of the time I'll be standing.

Bill: OK. Well, now, it all seems a lot less radical.

Personal Finances (Part III)

2011-04-10T02:48:00.000-07:00

One last thing. And this is no joke. I've contemplated what it would be to live without either electricity or even gas. In other words, pay rent, but just not have any utilities.

What it would look like is that I'd have to be able to eat raw food. I could eat vegetables and fruit and -- I was at the Farmers Market today and a vendor made this claim -- get my protein from bread. This way refrigeration wouldn't have to be an issue.

As far as the gas is concerned, we don't use gas heating now anyway. What would be difficult is having to take only cold showers. Not impossible, just extremely difficult.

Coming home at night would suck, too. "Honey, is that you"? That might be the point at which it became annoying. At that point, I could start building fires in the fireplace or even hanging outside on the sidewalk to enjoy the street lights. The former would just be exchanging one form of energy for another, while the latter would be mooching off of others' usage of electricity.

I do remember one time when around 6 PM all electricity on our block went out. It was refreshing to not have any lights on. I felt a calm. I don't if I could handle that everyday but maybe once a week would be nice.

Oh, I just realized that if I didn't have electricity I couldn't write this blog on my computer. Hmm. I'll have to think about that one.

Personal Finances (Part II)

2011-04-10T01:20:00.000-07:00

If my memory serves me correctly, once during a trip to the store my father once asked me whether I understood the difference between need and want. Of course, I responded. Doesn't everybody?

For the record, here's my current list of things I need, at least in principle:

1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Clothing

That's it. Nothing more. Three basic things. Granted, having these things doesn't mean that we'll necessarily be happy or even whole, but it's a good starting point.

Now here's the things that I believe many, according to what I've observed about their spending habits, think they need:

1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Clothing
4. Entertainment (I just saw Lincoln Lawyer today)
5. Hobbies (We own two electric vehicles right now)
6. Cars
7. Cell Phones
8. Internet Access
9. Education (In addition to getting a Bachelors I also got a Master of Arts, but hey, at least I didn't get a Master of Divinity, which would have been an extra year of schooling)
10. Stupid stuff that will probably be sold, donated or stored in some closet not too long after it was bought

My advice for the average person on my block who would seek my advice (and it has happened once) would be to get rid of all that shit after #3.

This, by the way, is where begin my rant, so be forewarned :) Cars are not necessary -- what's necessary is that one gets from point A to point B (unless one can accommodate all of one's relationships, livelihood, and spiritual exercises all under one roof, which I think is what monks do, and good for them for figuring that one out.) There are many ways to achieve this. Biking is one of them. Taking the bus is another. And of course there's always walking. My favorite way of getting around (though, ironically enough, my least practiced) is this last one. I always feel much more relaxed and connected to my neighborhood when I walk. I get to say Hi, or good morning, or at least make slight eye contact to people I've never met before. It somehow humanizes me, not to mention clears my sinuses.

People have all sorts of excuses for owning and driving their cars as much as they do, but truth be told, I have little sympathy. Here's some hypothetical excuses and my responses to them:

- I don't have time to walk
+ No, you probably don't given all the shit that you're trying to do with your day. You ever think that it might actually be better for your health, both physically and mentally, do just slow the fuck down? Maybe the quantity of things that you feel like you need to accomplish in a given day is a sign of how complicated and scattered your life is.

- I don't want to ride a bike. I'm too lazy.
+ Exactly.

- I need to get to work at a certain time and I just wouldn't be able to get there in time unless I drove
+ I'm not going to say the obvious, which is wake up earlier. What I will say is that you might want to consider a job that's nearer or moving to where your job is or simply carpooling in order to share the cost of car usage/ownership. Also, if you absolutely need a vehicle, there's much lower-cost alternatives such as motorcycles, scooters (both gas and electric), and even electric bikes. Just yesterday I rode my electric bike 30+ plus miles to get from Pasadena to Upland, and it took me about two hours. That's a long time, and I don't think I'd be willing to do that on weekdays, but if I had no other alternatives, I would, and I could probably cut that time down to an hour and half after enough conditioning.

The astute reader will note that if I'm to be consistent I should at least add to my list of necessities a #4 which is transportation, unless I plan to walk everywhere. I guess this is fair, even if I worked and worshiped nearby, I'd occasionally have to take the bus or find some other way to connect with others not in my immediate vicinity.

Fine.

#4 Transportation

I'm realizing at this point in my blog that two of my values are conflicting with one another: frugality and trying to maintain important relationships, because other than my rental property, those are the only things that would cause me to venture out of my neighborhood. (Thinking out loud)... I could probably walk to my parents' house -- a thirty mile trip, but it would take the whole day, so in theory I could eventually do it.

I don't like where this blog is going. I see that I have my limits just like everyone else. Let's move on before I fall off my high horse.

I know that people feel that they need cell phones, and I don't know, maybe it's impossible these days to relate to people or to have much of a social life unless one has one. Still, it's possible. I've even contemplated getting rid of our landline, which of course, would never be allowed though I have suggested it to my wife at least on one occasion just to see how she would react. Seriously, though, there are other ways of communicating: in person, via email, even writing a letter.

I'm lucky in that I have internet access at work. Even if I didn't, though, I could always go to a public library and hop on. Internet access is bad because it allows me to view pornography (something I try not to do) as well as play online games like Settlers of Catan. By the way, I did try to join an online website for Settlers of Catan after a year of having participated in that site, but they rejected my membership renewal. Sad :(

Education. Here's a tough one. Can I honestly say that an education (formal, anyway) is something that is not necessary? Can I say that given that I've made a good (monetarily speaking) living being a computer programmer and that I probably wouldn't have landed my first job had it not been for the fact that I graduated with a Bachelors from a large accredited university? The truth of the matter is that having a degree helps one get a job in the common marketplace. It's unfortunate that in order to make money you have to invest money. Of course, there are other professions, as well as entrepreneurial enterprises, that don't require a degree. Most of the people I know, including myself, wanted to play it safe and get one. (I feel bad about this now. Should I have taken more risks with my life? Fuck.)

It's hard to know at the age of eighteen, what the hell one wants do with one's life. Shouldn't that be a result of having lived life a little bit and trying different jobs? The irony of it, though, is at least where I grew up, you were expected to figure that shit out ahead of time so that you could get a degree that would let you get that type of job. I think that's pretty fucked up and unrealistic. On the other hand, maybe a lot of people out there didn't think as rigidly as I did about what type of degree to get. Maybe some of my friends simply thought about what they wanted to study and figured any degree would be good enough, and that enjoying the course of study was more important than being able to land a well-paying job in a field directly related to one's course of study. When I was in college I remember considering it unfortunate that my two favorite classes my freshman year were voice and contemporary theology. And I remember specifically considering switching my major to religion but deciding against it given that I wasn't sure what kind of job I could get with a religion degree after graduating. I don't necessarily regret my choice of sticking with a computer engineering degree, though I do lament the fact that I didn't take my college education "by the balls" a little bit more. If I were to do it all over again, maybe I would have studied computer science proper, which would have allowed me to have many more electives, and taken a minor in religion. Oh well.

All that being said is that there are many paths to finding a way to support oneself, since those two aren't necessarily the same, and that getting an undergraduate or graduate degree doesn't always need to be part of the equation. The cost of a formal education is just too high these days. Those of us who don't want to pay too much for an education could consider online degrees, junior colleges, or vocational schools, for example. Enough said.

Most of us the people I associate with are aware that we live in a consumer society that encourages spending. There is of course a logic to it: if I spend money, this will help out a business, which in turn employs people. I've often examined whether or not frugality is a good thing. Now, as I think about it, it's unfortunate that our economy is built on a system that requires that I spend money in order that others may be employed and do things like pay for the necessities of life. If I think about where I work, at a theological institution, my livelihood there is contingent upon others paying for a high-priced degree. My rental property income is contingent upon my tenants' finding employment, or some other means of generating income, and so forth and so on.

But what if we lived in an an economy in which basic human rights -- again I stress the word rights, not commodities -- like owning land and being able to farm it, were somehow segregated from the economic system at large so that one could conduct one's daily affairs without having to always worry about basic survival? In fact, let's leave out clothing since, for the majority of us, clothing is pretty easy to come by and doesn't need to be repurchased continually, unlike food. What if everyone could own enough land, without having to pay a mortgage, and be able to grow food on it so that they could be self-sufficient? And if they wanted to buy other commodities or luxuries, like cell phones or cars or internet access -- whatever -- they could still do so, all the time knowing that their land (and by extension their food, as well), would always be secure, or at least secure from having not having enough cash?

This, to me, is the biggest problem with our (national) economy. Housing is too damn expensive. Even if I were to own my own home free and clear, I'd still have to pay property tax. And if I don't own my own home, how could I purchase one without being saddled with an enormous amount of debt which would in turn chain me to a given job or occupation or series of jobs and occupations in order to help pay off the mortgage? I really feel that it's a sick system we live in. We buy and sell property as if it were a commodity, when in reality, it should be a fundamental right to be able to settle on the earth and to claim a patch of land as one's own. To me, buying and selling land should be something abnormal, done in unusual circumstances, and if land is to be bought and sold, it should be the type of land that isn't necessary for one's survival, but for producing extra goods or services and for generating income if that's so desired. There should be a differentiation.

I hear my wife's voice: "Joe, you're living in dream-dream land again. That would never happen." Yes. It's very unrealistic. However, I can think of two ways to approximate such a state. First, seniors must pass on property that is free and clear to their children, and we must have tax laws to allow such transfer at no cost. Second, given that cities run, in part, through the funds that come through the taxation of residential property, it would be great if instead of having to pay property tax monetarily, one could volunteer to work for the services that the city provides via the people it would normally hire. Of course, as long as the city provides services that require goods and not just labor, it will always need some sort of cash flow, but perhaps there are other creative arrangements that the city could make with other cities, the state, or even the federal government that could leverage other (non-cash) assets the city possesses to reduce this need for cash to a minimum.

All that to say, we live in a cash-based economy, for better or for worse. I hope that as I get older I learn to trust in God more than on the cash that that declaration is printed on.

Help me to trust you for my needs and for the needs of this world. As much as I hate dealing with cash, help me to give it freely to those who ask for it. Help me to remember that cash is a commodity, and that relying on it too much or worrying about it too much causes me to be and to feel less than what I could. Please help our nation and our world find a better way of providing for the necessities and joys of life and meaningful work, too.

Personal Finances (Part I)

2011-04-10T00:41:00.000-07:00

I really do envy the attention that I perceive certain authors who write about personal finances get from the general public. I'll own that. What a rush it would be to have my own book or my own column and have people follow me religiously. Sound vain? Perhaps. Some, I suppose, are driven to seek attention, to hear their voice heard in some fashion, and I happen to be one of those people.

If I were to write a book on the subject, I'd say right off the bat that my advice isn't for those who wish to accumulate wealth; that is, increase their net worth, save for the future, even have enough for retirement. Though I have my own retirement savings as well as my own house, I consider such aspirations *in general* to be perverse. First, money was not mean to be accumulated or hoarded, but to be used. Secondly, any type of saving for the future that is done out of fear and apart from any concern for the needs of those around should be something that we avoid.

The reality of life today, here in Pasadena and in other parts of the United States, however, is that unless we own our own home free and clear, we'll always need to find a way to pay rent or our mortgage and property taxes. It's a sad state of affairs, but the very thing that should be a fundamental human right -- to possess land -- has become a commodity thrown to the merciless whims of our market economy. Until that is addressed, there really can be no such thing as economic security.

I've always believed that we complicate our lives with too many things. (I complicate my life with too many thoughts, which is my own goddamn fault, but that's for another story.) Most of my life has been spent around people who made enough of a salary to have discretionary income. The other group of people I've lived around, at least for the last ten years of my life, are those who owe some business money because they borrowed it to help pay for a graduate degree. As an aside, sometimes people who are in the second category also perceive themselves as being in the first, but I see things differently: unless one has paid off all financial debt assigned to her, she really has no discretionary income, just money she's spending foolishly. That might sound harsh, but it's like being a prisoner who's attempting to dig her way out to freedom and in spare moments chooses to spend time doing things other than digging; while those moments may offer a reprieve and so in some way may even be necessary, the "freedom" she has in spending her time in prison will be circumscribed by her incarceration until she's able to dig out that last patch of dirt to the outside. (That's some real Shawshank Redemption shit, isn't it)?

While the two aren't mutually exclusive, lately I've noticed in the Christian communities I've been a part of the tension between investing time to build up one's personal assets for personal security versus building up one's connections with other people in order to provide for relational security. One version of this might mean choosing to work more hours to save up for a rainy day so that in case one get's laid off one can use one's savings to pay the rent or the mortgage while one is looking for another job versus choosing to invest in relationships enough to have a group of friends who would be willing to take one in in case times got tough. Of course, if taken to the extreme, there could be some obvious hypocrisy in this in that the friend who take's one is probably is working! Still, I think it's always a good practice to appraise one's relationships periodically, to see how deep they are, and ponder the scenario of having to rely on outside help.

Of course this brings up the bigger question of why employment and relationships are bifurcated the way they are. Why aren't there more ways of earning a living or providing services locally or otherwise that can be taken up by individuals in a given neighborhood or community so that making money can be combined with building relationships? What is it about our society that makes it so difficult to start one's own business either alone or with one's friends and family?

Joe's Life Lessons

2011-04-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

-- To be presented April 3, 2011 at Urban Village

Good friends are hard to come by, and we can't always hold onto them.

Unfortunately, most of the world's ills are caused by love of money and insecurity about the future.

There is a spiritual dimension to knowledge, to being able to see certain things, hear certain things, understand certain things.

We all want the good things of life -- a health body, a healthy mind, enduring relationships -- but few of us are willing to do the difficult work that's required to acquire and maintain them.

There is much suffering in this world. Not all suffering can, or even should, be avoided. There are ways to accept suffering so as to open oneself up to life and to others.

Like good friends, good food is hard to come by.

We'll never really know how little -- or how much -- good we've done in this world.

Farming

2011-03-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

The only way to eat right is to grow your own food. You could buy it from the Farmers Market or from the grocery store, but you'll never know how they grow their food, the condition of their soil, etc.

This is what I believe in principal, anyway. For at least a year now I've thought very seriously about growing my own food. I've been too lazy and busy to really get the process going. I planted Tavera seeds in our front lawn about two months ago. I hear, though my neighbor and roommates, that gophers had eaten up the seeds. It was fun. I planted them with our son Jude. But, it's obviously going to take a lot more work and persistence to make sure that I end up getting a crop that can feed our family.

Why is it so hard for me to really do this? Part of it has to do with the fact that when I come home from work I don't feel like planting seeds. I feel like sleeping, or hanging out with my wife. Jude would enjoy planting seeds, but I don't really know what the hell I'm doing -- I haven't practiced farming, much like I haven't practiced cooking. Unlike cooking, I have a community that's readily available who could help me out. Sure, there's Craig next door, and Nancy up the street, but I feel as if I'd disagree with a lot of their advice and I don't know who I'd turn to after that. So in the end, maybe I'm not as serious about this as I should be.

Shit that's Hard to Deal with

2011-02-02T11:42:00.001-08:00

Conflict is difficult. What's even more difficult, for me, is seeing things inside of myself that I don't like to see -- weaknesses, character flaws, bad habits. We had a situation this past weekend that blew up in our faces and I'm not really sure how to proceed. I'm beginning to see how anger, intolerance, and the need to control my environment are a part of my make-up. I'm beginning to see how much I've kept myself away from people in order to shield myself from what I fear will be their disapproval and anger.

One of the people most difficult for me to deal with is my father. Just today I had to talk to him, and as usual, our conversations, our ways of dealing with situations we must manage together, provoked stress.

I am trying to emotionally available to those whom I interact with -- especially Glory, my spouse. I find that when I can center myself I am less prone to be anger or frustrated. Such centering requires that, throughout the day, I clear space in my head. Like now.

Being Green and Shit

2011-02-01T05:43:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid we used to have a filler phrase "... and shit". It didn't really mean anything other than to parenthetically add a note of cynicism or jadedness to the item preceding.

So the title of this blog is "Being Green and Shit" because this whole green fad has become nauseating. You know why? Because being green is really quite simple. Yet these things that it requires are not typically the types of things that are discussed or encouraged when we talk about what it means to be green. Why? Because they're too damn hard.

Here's what I mean.

Lots of people say, "If you want to be green, buy a hybrid." No, dumbass. You're still putting harmful greenhouse (not to mention cancer-causing) gases into the air. If you really want to be green, walk. Or, if you have to buy a vehicle, buy an E-Road electric scooter which are twenty times lighter and twenty times as energy-efficient as a hybrid. Walking, obviously requires the least amount of fuel, just the fuel used to produce the food you need to replenish the calories you spent walking.

Then there's that advice about changing your light bulbs. True, this will save you a little bit of energy. But how about not turning on your lights at all, unless of course, it's past sundown or really early in the morning? (I think that's why they invented windows). Or better yet, turn on every light in the house to your heart's content, but in exchange, stop relying on your air conditioning and heating, which really use a hell of a lot more energy than light bulbs do.

If we really want to help the planet we better start thinking of what a wise visitor to Urban Village once called "responsible procreation", which means to think about the environmental impact of birthing children -- namely, exponential if you're kids grow up to have their own kids and so forth and so on. Still, being married, I think that's kind of hard to do. To me it seems somewhat unnatural, maybe even inefficient, to have only one child -- who is he/she going to play with, and why not take advantage of the fact that your older children can help watch your younger children? No, I say, let married people keep having kids (or adopt if they're unable to have them biologically), but let those who are single seriously consider a life of celibacy. I'm not joking. In this day and age we act as if marriage is the panacea to all our woes. It's not. Just ask those people who's marriages suck or who have had to divorce their spouse because they just couldn't make it work. Also ask single people who really enjoy their singleness. We need to relearn what it means to find our relational fulfilment in community, in friends, in family, in platonic, opposite-sex relationships, and we need to relearn the art of masturbation. Hey, if you're meat-loving, Hummer-driving, and addicted to shopping, but either by choice or by circumstance end up passing into the next life without having had any kids, you've done your part to save this planet, my friend.

This same visitor to Urban Village who mentioned responsible procreation also claims that our biggest carbon footprint comes from food production and distribution. I believe her. We need to start getting our hands dirty and relearn how to garden again. I know that yards tend to be non-existent these days (especially if you live in one of those white, mansion-like, two-story houses in Arcadia, California) or if you live in an apartment. But again, that's because of urban density, which is a result of -- you guessed it -- overpopulation. Can I hear a witness?

So here's my list of what it takes to be really green:

1) Don't give birth
2) Grow food in your yard and eat it exclusively
3) Walk
4) Don't turn on your heater or air conditioning

You might be thinking, "Joe, in short, what you're telling me is to not live." Well, to be a little bit more fair, what I'm telling you is to not live like the average American. While these approaches might seem extremely burdensome and oppressive, the funny thing is that being green in these ways can actually be quite life-giving. Again, I'd recommend #1 only to singles. #2 is is quite relaxing and will probably get you outdoors enjoying the sun and air more than you are already. And if you can't do it yourself, because of space limitations, buy your food from someone who does. #3 can be fairly straightforward once you're able to secure a job near where you live or relocate to where your job is now, once you realize that it is possible to befriend your neighbor and enjoy the church that is right down the street. And trust me, once you get used to not having a car, it is very freeing to not have to worry about smog checks, repairs, registration, and parking fees. As far as #4 is concerned, just man up dude, seriously.

Homelessness

2011-01-27T05:09:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of homeless people on our streets in any given day. Last year it was reported that in Pasadena there are an average of 1000 people who will not be sleeping indoors at night. Pasadena has been very cold this winter. Twice in the last two months there it has rained heavily for days.

Sometimes I see people on the streets who look homeless. I look at them and they seem sad or tired or worn. Most people on the streets have backpacks, maybe a sleeping bag. A couple of people that I have seen have traveled the streets with dogs!

I want to help people. Then again, I don't know how. I've thought about walking around my neighborhood at night and striking up conversations with people - not having money on me to give away, not having an agenda, but to just talk to people on the street. I might have done this once or twice since having lived in Pasadena; I wonder what would happen if I did it more.

That's where I would like to start. I don't know where it would lead. It might lead me to want to save them, to let them sleep on our porch, I don't know. It might just make me despair. Who knows?

The Bumblebee

2011-01-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been experimenting with electric vehicles. Just this morning I was taking out my "Bubmlebee" out for a spin when I noticed that the chain had fallen off of one of the gears. I know how this happened. Yesterday when I was leaving from work, right when I had begun to take off from the sidewalk, I felt the bike pull back a little bit. I looked down and, lo and behold, I had forgot to take off the chain lock that was securing my back wheel to its frame. I took off the lock, chided myself, then continued on my way. On the way I heard a funny "clinking". I wasn't sure what the sound was -- I kept looking back at my rear wheel -- but I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. When I got home I forgot about it and proceeded on with my evening.

Today, very early in the morning, I was biking to the bank and I tried pedaling just for kicks, but my pedaling produced a strange sound -- one that I wasn't accustomed to hearing. When I looked back, I noticed that the chain was no longer on the rear gear. That was just two hours ago.

I tried taking apart assemblages near the rear wheel, hoping to push the rear wheel closer towards the front of the bike so that I could fit the chain back on. (I tried doing it by hand as soon as I found out and there wasn't enough play on the chain to be able to fit it around, which kind of makes me wonder how the hell it came off in the first place.) I was making good progress, even though it was only 4 in the morning, but at some point I had to take off a nut with a half-dome and the 1/2 inch socket I was using to take it off wasn't deep enough to completely fit down to its base. Strangely enough, I was able to take off two or three other sockets of the exact same size with that same socket.

I'll talk to my neighbor Dave next door to see if he'd be willing to help me take out one of the chain links. Then it should be an easy matter of looping the chain around and putting the chain together. If that doesn't work, I'm going to need Richie's help with taking off the half-dome nut.

Praying

2011-01-24T07:59:00.001-08:00

I've been trying to pray once a day, in the morning. Sometimes I will pray with my family, as I did this morning. Other times I will go outside and walk around. Still other times I will go in the Urban Village garage and pray.

The Value of Our Work

2011-01-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

My friend John once told me that there are two things that contribute to one's happiness: one, the quality of one's interpersonal relationships and two, the satisfaction that one's work brings. How true is this? How much have I invested in my own relationships to make them as good as they can be? How much time have I spent with my closest friends to find out how they're doing, to have fun with them, to work with them on various projects? With regards to my work, how have I offered it to God in prayer, asking for his grace and guidance in the myriad decisions that must be made? Have I asked to be his tool of redemption and healing in the workplace, in its culture and in the various interpersonal, political, and organizational dynamics?

Cars

2010-11-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

My relationship with that ubiquitous, metallic, 1 1/2 ton person-killer known as the automobile is fairly strained, to say the least. For those of you who have heard me rant about driving's deleterious effects of the environment, this confession is not revelatory. I dislike, nay, hate cars because:

They pollute the environment, which leads to things such as asthma, cancer, and global warming
Many have been seriously injured and even died from accidents involving them, due to their weight and the velocity at which they travel
It makes everyday activities like riding a bicycle much less pleasant for me, given that I have to constantly be aware of my surroundings and ride "defensively"
They make a lot of noise. Even as a I sit here in my office, I can hear the hum of cars outside on Los Robles, Colorado, and perhaps even the freeway, through my window.

Why are we Southern Californians addicted to driving? I'd say the reasons are many. For one, we're used to it. Our parents drove, our friends drove, and when we were sixteen, we couldn't wait to get our own license to be able to explore the world on our own. It was fun and cool. When we're older we sort of need it -- to get from here to there -- and even if we didn't, if for some reason we got into an accident and couldn't immediately replace our vehicle and had to give it up to a junk yard or sell it, we'd feel uncomfortable when we didn't have easy access to a car -- as if something integral to our lives and our place in the world were missing.

I've schemed of various ways to get people to drive less -- even to sell their car. None of them have really worked. I've honestly felt like giving up, thinking that unless one has "eyes to see" and "ears to hear", there's just no point in talking (or writing) about it. This is despite the fact that of the twenty or so people I know who's daily routines I'm fairly privy to, only one of them really *needs* a car. I take that back -- I have a friend who likes to take impromptu trips to places where he can enjoy more open space and seclusion from civilization -- he needs a car, too. That's two people out of twenty.

I think at the end of the day I'm not too unsympathetic to people's needs to be on time for stuff, to get more stuff done with the day -- the one sticking point to trying to live a life not (as) dependent on a personally owned vehicle. There are certain times when we want or need to be somewhere right away. I think that's valid. What I think is not valid, or at least requires some further thought, is whether or not we are able to fit more things into our day because of the fact that we own an automobile, and whether or not being able to fit more things into our day is a good thing.

The simple answer to that question is no, being able to fit more things into your routine doesn't make your life better, if anything, it probably gives you more of an opportunity to be more scattered, less available to yourself, to God, and to those who love you and want you. Having said that, I realize that one element of modern life, given our culture and habits, that drives (pun intended) people to rely on automobiles is that of the daily commute. To address this reality, there's an easy answer, a hard answer, and a more moderate approach to solving this dilemma.

The easy answer is that we should all find work that is within walking distance. Let's just dispense with all this bullshit about needing a car to drive sixty miles a day -- let's just work within a distance that's tolerable for walking. The problems with this are obvious: it's hard to find a job we want to work in that's nearby, especially for "professionals" who have a very limited view of what they want and can contribute to the world. Second, work is not the only aspect of our lives -- we go to church, visit friends, shop, etc. Now it is possible to do all those things nearby -- that's what we and my wife do, but even then there will be situations in which we will be forced to use a vehicle -- take our upcoming weekend trip to Palm Springs, for example.

The hard answer, some would call it unrealistic, is that we should reinvent modern commerce so that people can have more opportunities to work at home or close to home. Telecommuting is one popular version of this. But there are others that I've thought of, for example forming cooperatives with one's neighbors to offer a product or service or set of products and services to surrounding neighborhoods. If I think about the talent and other resources on our block I can think of many things: the Urban Village garage for meeting space, trained therapists, people (like myself) who are good with finances, a car cooperative. We even have land that we could use for community gardening, which could then be harvested and sold/distributed/bartered with others in the Pasadena area. There's really a lot that one can do locally.

There are many obstacles to doing something like this: one is that larger projects could require a tremendous amount of cooperation and coordination between neighbors who might already have full-time jobs and may not be interested in investing the initial time and energy into something that would require to establishing those projects. Second, much of our day-to-day existence requires that we generate a certain amount of income in order to pay for such necessities such as food and housing; in other words, we all have bills to pay. I can imagine working on various income-generating initiatives within our neighborhood, even with minimal help from others, but I can't imagine making enough to pay rent (though I do wonder if my landlord would be willing to barter my time for helping me out at his office for part of our rent payment). I'd also have to let go of what I wrap my self-worth or self-image around: being an 8-to-5 guy, making a decent salary, being a professional, etc. I think that might be the toughest of all.

The more moderate approach, while achievable, is really not sufficient at the end of the day, given the realities of overpopulation and urban density, the rates at which we're consuming gasoline and just not having enough quality time to spend with our family and neighbors. But I'll go over it nonetheless. Basically if we carpooled, took public transportation, or used methods of personal transportation that required less energy, such as bikes, electric bikes, and electric scooters (leaning towards the ones that are less powerful and lighter-weight), we could save on our gas consumption, air and noise pollution, and injury/fatality rate.

At this point I'm going to rant a little bit. So forgive me if this offends, but I have to get it off my chest. I really am tired of people who complain that they don't get enough exercise or who don't have time to go the gym and who continue to drive. Again, most of the people I know live within a few miles of work. Some I know work farther than that, but IMHO, if you work less than five miles from your house, and you're physically disabled, there should be no reason why you don't ride your bike to work. Some of our more hard core cyclists would increase that limit to ten or even fifteen miles, and maybe that's not too unrealistic, especially once you get into a routine and build up your endurance. But I think the main problem is, again, people don't care about the fact that cars exhaust dangerous fumes into the air, and that streets become unsafe, and that people (like me) who like quiet are robbed of that, or that at the end of the day, if we continue relying on cars as much as we do, and don't discriminate between those trips that really need a gas-powered vehicle and those that could do without one, are world will one day become largely uninhabitable.

Maybe to some that last statement wreaks of paranoia. And maybe there's some truth to such an evaluation. But I know one thing: our current media, and most sources of information nowadays downplay the realities of what's happening around the world: the temperature increases around the world, the melting of our ice caps, the increase in population of certain plants and bugs in some areas of the world and their decrease in other areas. Take for example, the fact that there are less bees around, that we're having to import them to help pollinate our crops. Or the fact that mosquitos are now living in lower altitudes worldwide, which in turn affects the health of the human populations which they inhabit. Or what about droughts in certain parts of the world and floods in others? Sound like the end times? Or at least the end of the end times, as a priest at St Andrews had clarified. All these are signs of climate change, which is, again, a large function of how we use our resources on this planet -- our reliance on the modern automobile being one of them.

At the end of the day, there are some very powerful people out there who want us to keep driving cars and buying gas. It's important for their profits, and in a very real sense, and let's be honest, in a very real way it is important for keeping our economy going, at least the way that our modern commercial activities and tax revenues are structured now. So in essence, the problem feels fairly straightforward: a) We need to keep people from being less greedy and b) We need to form new patterns of lifestyle and commerce that make our activities closer. The first issue is one of the heart -- we have to hope and pray that through our efforts, as Christians who care for the world and the perpetrators who make our world less of a desirable place to live, others will change, that they will begin to care more. As Jesus put it, "Let your light shine before men [and women] in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." As far as doing things like creating jobs, goods, and services locally, well, that's going to have to require participation on many levels. Consumers are going to have to be interested in the goods and services that these people of good conscience are providing and that's going to require that they change their shopping habits -- I really don't know how else to put it. It's also going to require that people like myself are willing to give up the financial security that a typical 8 to 5 job provides, namely, a steady income and health insurance. It's going to require that a lot of people take the plunge together.

I think that's what's called a leap of faith.

Money and other stuff

2010-10-19T06:28:00.001-07:00

I seem to be obsessed with money. I'm sure that has a lot to do with my upbringing and being berated by my father whenever he thought I didn't spend it well.

I'm a pretty frugal guy, but like my friend Nancy Kennedy, I've discovered that the most joyous expenditures have not been those that resulted in the accumulation of goods, but rather those that allowed me to celebrate an event, a moment. Glory and I bought our scooter for $2800 -- it was really exciting at the time. But, it turned out that I didn't really like it after a while because it was top-heavy, and after driving it on the roads of speeds of up to 30 mph I began to feel more and more unsafe on it. So now, even though it is being used by friends in our car cooperative, it more or less just sits in our driveway -- and lately I've felt a little guilty about the purchase since, since then, we've also bought another electric scooter as well as an electric bike -- all totalling about $5000. For someone who prides himself on his frugality, I haven't been doing such a great job.

I compare that to my experience going down to Lucky Baldwin's to celebrate my having graduated from Fuller Seminary. I'd been there before, and one time when I had visited, I remembered seeing these Trappist beers for sale. They were the most expensive beers on the menu, and there was no way I was going to buy them -- at that time. But I had just graduated, and I felt like celebrating. So, I bought one of the Trappist beers, consumed it, and ordered another. Glory was with me (this was before Jude), we laughed, we talked, just had a good old time. It's such a fond memory. I think maybe spent $20 on those beers.

Most people, I imagine, who get into problems with money, do so because they complicate they're lives with too many things -- clothing, cell phones, internet access, cars (especially cars because you have to deal with insurance, gasoline, registration, and repairs). But even if you're smart with money and manage to live a fairly simple, you can't get away from it. How would you pay rent? You could stay at someone else's house, but eventually, unless they were willing to let you stay there in exchange for labor, you'd probably still need some money to survive, or at least to enjoy yourself every now and then.

So I guess at the end of the day, now in 2010, living in the U.S., you'll always need some money. Maybe not a lot, but some. I guess the best place to start, at least for me, is to resign oneself to this fact. Once we do so, we can move on and concentrate on the more important things in life.

One thought that eases my fears about money is that it's largely out of my hands, anyway. Jesus taught us to pray for our "daily bread". I guess part of what he was saying was that we should ask for, and maybe even be concerned only about, for what we need today. Not ten days or ten years from now but today. God loves us and cares us and doesn't want us to worry about the future, that's his job. Our job is to simply to love him and to love those around us.

I'm 35 now and I've spent a lot of my life accumulating wealth and property. By most standards, I'm pretty well off. I have a house that's paid off and money to spare. At the end of the day, though, do you think that really counts for much? I don't. It's nice to have an income from my rental property. I like dealing with my tenants, even they get cranky on me. But other than that, I don't know if I get a whole lot out of it. Some might say that that's easy for me to say, since I'm not out on the street, or struggling to pay my bills, it's easy for me to feign some form of disdain for my own wealth while at the same time secretly enjoying the security it provides. That might be true, and if it is, so be it. But at the same time, I do know that I could die any day. I know that something could go wrong with that property, someone could get hurt, and I could get sued, and all of a sudden, that wealth could be gone. Or one of my tenants could lose my job, which then diminish my rental income, at least temporarily.

I guess if I could have one wish in the world, it's that I wouldn't ever have to worry about going hungry or lacking friends. I know we all have to die, some sooner than others, but that's all I would hope for. We live in a world where these things aren't guaranteed. One can die hungry and alone. Trying to make sense of it all can be close to impossible. I suppose we use whatever ideas we've been picked up throughout to try to make some peace with this reality. Or we try to fight this reality by trying to change some of it, by volunteering or working for some non-profit organization or donating our own money to others who do. Or we pray. We pray for God's forgiveness for cooperating both explicitly and implicitly with the powers that cause these realities to exist, and we ask for God's grace to work through us to be one of his redemptive agents in the world.

This life is fucked up. But, if we have hope, in the Biblical sense, we believe God and his promise to make things right.

Away from my wife

2010-10-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

Glory, if you're checking your email, you're probably reading this blog. I miss you when you're gone. I wish you could have stayed one more night.

Que Sera Sera

2010-10-14T15:49:00.000-07:00

When I was just a little boy I asked my mother what will I be...

I've contemplated quitting my job, trying something different. The latest thing I've contemplated is moving in with my brother-in-law and his family and kicking it with them in New York for a couple of years. I don't know what life would look like. I know it would be a lot quieter out there, which would be fun; it would also be a lot hotter in the summer and a lot colder in the winter. Then again, the summers would probably be tolerable, since they're farther up north.

How does one make decisions like that -- the "what do I plan to do with my life" decision? Right now I'm cool with living in Pasadena, but I'm also restless. I'm tired of the traffic and of the smog. I just want some place a lot quieter and a lot more peaceful. Upland is a nice city, but it's the city of my childhood -- there's nothing really there for me now. All my friends have moved on to other cities. It's a lonely place, too. If we were ever to move back there, we could hang out with my folks, but would we do with ourselves? We'd have to make new friends and start a new life.

God, help me to have a party line to you. Not that I need to fulfil myself. Help me never to make that a goal of my life. God, you know who we are. Help us to move towards you. Amen.

The Story of Stuff

2010-09-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today my wife will be presenting "The Story of Stuff" to members of Pasadena Mennonite Church. I've seen the clip -- it's fairly straightforward. The point that keep thinking about is what would happen if people really followed her suggestions, I really followed them. Would our economy collapse?

When I first tried answering this question for myself, I found it very difficult to find an easy way out of what I thought would be the implication: namely, that we would have to radically change our economy to be something other than one that is based on monetary exchange. Last night while riding my bike alongside my friend Monte, however, I realized that that's really not necessary. There are plenty of things we do that employ people and generate taxes that don't produce a lot waste or harm to our surroundings. I can think of several "industries" right off the bat: education, therapy, chiropractic, in-home care, farming the old-fashioned way. I'm sure there are many others as well. Even an industry that is based on the production and distribution of goods can operate in such a way that is more in tune with the planet by doing things such as choosing renewable resources in place of ones that require a lot of chemical processing. I saw an example of this on YouTube in which an African enterprise was making bicycle frames out of bamboo.

I believe what it really boils down to are two things: high costs and greed. In order to survive as a business, especially one that has to pay for things like insurance, office space, benefits, etc., it becomes really difficult to make it in this world unless you really push your product or your service. Likewise, many people who get into business don't want to really do all that work for a modest income or salary; my guess is that the people who really think big are the ones who are really ambitious and want to be duly rewarded for such ambition. I realize that's a gross generalization, but I'm also fairly certain if you look at the top five hundred companies with the highest revenues in the United States, it's all about increasing market share, to make more and more profit.

Costs can be cut by not being forced to guarantee a forty hour work-week, by producing things only when they're demanded by consumers, instead of having to stockpile them, by not having an office space (working from home for example), and by not providing benefits like health insurance.

I'll detour here by writing a little about my thoughts on health insurance. Most people I know would probably consider this a necessity. You need health insurance to stay healthy. Unfortunately I don't know if this is really true. My mother once almost died of an aneurysm -- I believed the medical costs totalled over $200,000 -- a small price to pay when you considered that it saved her life. She was around 60 at the time, so it seemed to make sense to try to save her. But you know what? Even if we didn't have it, they still would have operated. Sure, our costs would have been up the mother-fucking roof, but we have eventually found a way to pay. I'm trying to imaging scenarios in which not having insurance could people in a real bind -- I guess it could -- especially if you own a home, and that's your means of security. I guess what we need are laws in this land that prevent debt from taking someone's home from them, kind of like a jubilee law that would ensure that they could continue to hold onto the right of ownership of their property so that they can still have a roof over their heads and pass that "roof" on their children while they work towards paying off the debt. Or laws that prevent a collection agency from taking so much from an individual's paycheck that that person can't end up paying for rent or food for his/her children. That would be fucked up.

Even from a pragmatic perspective, however, it seems to make sense that given that health insurance companies must make a profit, there is an overhead to having to administer health insurance. Let's put it really simply. Let's suppose that ten people decided to create their own insurance of sorts by pooling together $100 per month each -- that's $1000 per month for the group. Now let's suppose that those same people, instead of sharing it among themselves each decided to go to their own insurance companies -- they're still contributing $100 per month, but each company would have to take a cut of that, maybe 5%, maybe 10%, maybe 15%, to be able to continue to employ its own employees, provide office space for them, provide benefits (their own health insurance!), etc. So that $1000 that is ready to be spent on doctors, specialists, etc in the first scenario then becomes $950 or $900 or $850 in the second scenario. In this way, health insurance actually reduces the amount of money that can be contributed to health care. The sad part about all this is that you have to get sick or disabled in order to "win" in this game. By winning I mean getting more money out than you put in. And that's a selfish win because at the end of the day, someone else had to lose (that is, not get sick or disabled) in order to pay your bill for doing so.

It seems to me that a lot better system would be that if I get sick I pay for it. If someone else gets sick, he or she pays for it. And if they need help, they can ask me, and I'll contribute to it. Doesn't that seem a lot more straightforward?

Getting back again to cutting costs in a business, if businesses didn't have to guarantee forty-hour work weeks to people, that would provide businesses the flexibility to operate at a pace and in a way that was more commensurate with their goals, their ideals, the needs and wants of their clientele, etc. But then would that be good for the employee? How would they be able to pay rent?

I suppose one answer would be that they could limit their exposure to such fluctations in employment by having several jobs, that's one solution. Another solution would be to being in a housing situation that was fairly inexpensive -- whether that situation is to own your home free and clear and/or to have a lot of roommates -- or to be able to move back and forth between friends and relatives who'll let you crash on their couch: there's ways to have cheap housing. Another way to make things work would be to have arrangements with landlords who are willing to say, "OK, look, you can't pay rent this month, fine. I have some work that you could do that you can exchange for the rent you would have paid me." In other words, whatever financial obligations a person normally would have that would necessitate a forty-hour per week job could be fulfilled through means other than paying money. And I think at the end of the day, this has to be the model for moving forward with the economy in a way that's not destructive, for people to forgive each others' debts as it were -- just like the Lord's prayer says. As long as people, even agencies like the County Tax Collectors office -- if their bylaws and policies allowed some flexibility in how their administrators traded hours between those who owed taxes and what type of work needed to be done in the city or county, we could see a lot more people being employed and doing something meaningful with their time instead of having to "look for work".

Thinking about Community, Roots

2010-08-18T02:21:00.001-07:00

Today I was thinking about community, about my roots as a person. My parents came from the Philippines to Los Angeles (Whitter, to be specific) in the months preceding my birth. I don't remember my years before the age of four very well, all I've been told is that upon arriving here we stayed with some relatives of ours until my father could find some type of employment. Soon after finding a job my mother did the same. We eventually moved out of this generous family's residence and found our own apartment in the same city, then from there my father bought a house in West Covina a few years later, around the late 70s. My guess is that I was around four at the time.

In '83 he ended up purchasing a house in Upland, California, about thirty miles away, on the western border of San Bernardino county. He wanted to get away from the busyness of West Covina and from that area in general and move towards a quieter part of Southern California. I didn't really mind at the time, though, like any child, it took some getting used to -- making new friends, getting used to a "whiter" town, being part of a new school. I really liked video games back then, and I don't mean console games though we did own an Atari 2600, I mean the stand-up, full blown, CRT-based, 25 cents per play ones, and that was my first order of business -- to find out where all the video game arcades were in the city. I wasn't disappointed.

I ended up going to school in Baldy View Elementary, then Pioneer Junior High, then in the summer preceding my freshman year in high school, things sort of took a turn for the -- well, not worst, just unexpected. My father wanted me to attend a high school in Rosemead, a city about fifteen miles northwest of where we bought our first house, so that I could benefit from its trade program. He wanted to make sure I was well-developed, skilled, etc. It was actually a really good school, and I don't think that I appreciated it at the time. After some fighting over that summer, I relented, and we moved over to Rosemead to spend the next four years thee with my mother at 8039 Loren Lane.

Technically speaking, my mother and I spent only schooldays there: we weren't there during weekends or during the summer time. So in essence, I lived a double life, which is why I probably I still consider Upland my hometown. I still saw my friends from junior high -- Lawrence, Eric, Keyman, Brian, my mentor Tony -- I didn't let them go, nor they me. It was arrangement that, strangely enough, worked out. I missed out on some of the fun that my friends in high school were having, especially on weekends, but I also made an attempt to hang out with them when certain events were planned, too. In a way I had the best of both worlds.

After high school I attended USC and my primary social outlets were the dorms during my freshman year as well as two campus Christian clubs, Navigators and Baptist Student Union, the former occupying my first two years my first two years and the latter my last two and a half.

Immediately upon graduating I accepted a job over in Santa Monica and Lawrence, whom I mentioned earlier, and I became roommates over in West LA, not too far from UCLA where he went to school. We had a good time, not without typical roommate squabbles, but I felt good pretty about it. You'd have to ask Lawrence how he felt - I'm sure I could have been a lot better roommate and friend, and I think during a time of personal transition for him a few years later, he confessed to me his sentiments revealing this. Part of my reason for choosing the job out in Santa Monica and not another in Irvine, which I was also quite interested in, was that I wanted to stay close to people like Lawrence and Jay, a friend from my high school. I didn't feel as if I wanted to separate myself too much from them, even though I knew I couldn't guarantee that I could remain close to them forever. It turns out that Lawrence is just down the street from me and Jay isn't too far away, though it takes me a little bit of time to arrive at his house using public transportation.

So I was in West LA from February of 1997 until March of 2002 -- that's about five years and in that time I made some good friends from my first job and the job I transitioned to in 2000. I also had some friends from First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood as well as from North University Park Church, a church that I had attended as a freshman in college, so things were looking pretty good.

In July of 2002 I moved to Pasadena to be closer to the graduate school I began attending earlier that year. There I also hoped to make friends, to stay grounded, and to hopefully keep some of the friends I had made up to that point. I found graduate school to be a little bit different, though. A lot of the folks I was with were a little bit younger than I was -- not by much -- but many of them hadn't taken a break since their undergraduate education, so there was little bit of a life experience gap. At some point in 2003 or 2004 when I began dating a woman by the name of Marie, I remember feeling somewhat lost. At the time I wondered whether or not it was because I was investing all of my emotional energy on her and had given up with other relationships in my life. Even now as I look back I can't really explain what happened, but it's a feeling that's lasted even until today.

At some point Glory and I began dating in 2005; we soon married in December a year later. Things settled down a little bit. I felt like I was starting a new life. But I was still searching for a community, for friends. We tried engaging the various residents of our complex -- and they were friendly enough -- but it just seemed extremely difficult establishing any meaningful relationships. I grew restless. I started thinking about trying to move closer to Fuller, if only to reduce my commute, which was easy enough to begin with, and I ended up somehow hearing about and stumbling upon a group of people over on Madison Ave in between Villa Street and Orange Grove Ave. These people had moved to that blocks with the hope of building roots, of establishing some sens of permanence, which was the very same thing I was trying to do. It really appealed to me.

In August of 2008 we made the change and moved onto their block. We loved it at first. We still do, just that as with anything the excitement has worn off. We even began looking for housemates to fill our other two rooms to try an experiment of sorts, to have our own micro-intentional community within our household.

It's been almost two years now living with Glory (and now Jude), Bert, Thea, Gloria, Clare, Kimberly, Bea, Dave, John, and everyone else who's part of Urban Village, not to mention Bea's Monday night dinner group, as well as living with Trent our housemate.

I still feel somewhat adrift, even though from a geographical point of view, I'm probably best situated now more than ever. It's probably best not too think too hard of these things (a mentor in college told me to spend more time praying and less time thinking -- good advice that I haven't yet forgotten), but I can't help ponder the question of what it takes to form good, lasting, real community. If I look at the friendships that have lasted more than twenty years, I think of Jay and of Lawrence. That's two people. I came to the Madison block to be a part of something more than myself, but I've realized that it takes more than intention to be family, it takes time. Glory and I have gotten to know Trent over the last two years and that relationship has felt more comfortable, and we're starting to build some history with Bert and Gloria and others on the block, but I've realized that I can't be completely myself -- without reservation -- around them as I can with Jay and Lawrence, two friends who have known me so long that they can see past all my bullshit.

This search for community, the more that I reflect on it, has driven some pretty major decisions, the most important one being the one I made in 2006 of whether or not I should be married. That's pretty permanent. I remember something I read in Thomas A Kempis' Imitation of Christ -- something basically to the effect that we shouldn't grow too attached to those around us given that eventually, they will leave us, even if in death. I also think about what Jesus said, about leaving friends, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and houses for the gospel's sake, about how we will receive a hundredfold in this life and in the life to come. It strikes me that this constant search for community might, in some ways, has been counterproductive for me. Perhaps at the end of the day, the loneliness that drives me to find it, is something that will always will always be a part of my life, maybe it's just in my makeup and no amount of friends or family will ever completely eradicate or soothe it.

I'm just really left with no answers at this point, other than the realization that people move on and that I'm the kind of person who likes permanence. Given that I might not ever find that, what should I do? Perhaps it goes back to my old mentor's advice about prayer and to accepting the (sad) fact that people will always move on, either because of circumstance or choice, that there is no getting around that. It's been a hard fact for me to accept. I don't even know if at this point I want to completely accept it; I just know that I've assumed that if that weren't the case I'd feel less isolated and more grounded. Whether or not that's true I'm not sure if I'll ever know.

God, at this point I turn to you and ask you to help me with this quest. Help me to seek the kingdom of heaven and to find my friends and family there. Help me to be content in a Joe Bautista kind of way, despite my psychological proclivities and personal makeup. Help me to grow in love towards you, towards others, and towards myself. Maybe I won't find my home (completely) here on this earth. Maybe the ideals I seek are yet to be determined, in the cosmological sense that is. Maybe the era, the neighborhood, the kind of life I seek will be possible only when God returns to console his people, when as the book of Revelation says, he will wipe every tear from their eye and there will be no more war, no more pain, no more death -- or in my case no more transition due to attempts at upward mobility and other reasons for wanting or having to change employment.

I lift up these thoughts to you today.

7 Initiatives I'd like to work on at Fuller Seminary

2010-08-13T05:52:00.001-07:00

1) Reducing the amount of debt students will have encumbered themselves with upon graduating from our institution and adding value to that debt. This means reducing our overall institutional budget (ultimately, all our costs are passed on to them) as well as educating students of the debt and repayment obligations they will be taking on given a particular program and duration of study.

2) Reducing our dependency on computer technology that is costly, difficult to maintain, and adds little value to the education we offer our students. I'm thinking primarily of Banner here. One could also toss in mobile devices, wireless in the classroom, and even videoconferencing classes for which we could charge a higher tuition rate in order to compensate for the additional cost we need(ed) to establish and maintain the infrastructure necessary to support it.

3) Consolidating office space across the seminary in order to free ourselves from the leasing, mortgage, and bond repayment costs for real estate we can do without. With regards to property we own free and clear, liquidating it or leasing it out to other individuals and organizations.

4) Finding ways to be smarter about energy usage. Some ideas: installing solar panels, replacing fluorescent ceiling lights with their LED counterparts, instituting policies and technical measures to limit the use of air-conditioning, investing in more traditional and less energy-intensive climate-control technologies (e.g., windows that open/close, ceiling fans).

5) Maximizing the longevity of computer hardware by upgrading and replacing RAM, hard drives, and CD-ROM drives of older machines and by introducing Linux as a "free", secure, and less resource intensive operating system for such machines.

6) Developing a carpooling and/or vanpooling program for students and staff. Developing ridesharing programs among students living in campus housing in conjunction with local insurance agencies. Sponsoring fun events around L.A. and Pasadena that involve taking the Metro to get there.

7) Identifying and consolidating duplicate pidms.

A Case for Singleness

2010-05-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.
-- Matthew 19:12 NIV

"Eunuch". I was eleven or twelve when I first found that word in my Bible, and my fascination with it must have stuck with me throughout the years, for when the time came for my wife and I to choose the Gospel passage to be read at our wedding I immediately thought of Matthew 19:3-12. I'm guessing that most ceremonies usually stop at verse six -- the rest of the passage doesn't sound quite so upbeat -- but Glory and I insisted that we include verses seven through twelve because we wanted to remind ourselves that marriage could be hard; we also wanted the many singles attended our wedding to hear the words of Jesus telling them that singleness is just as valid a way of following God as being married.

I want my readers to hear these same words today.

It's been difficult not to notice the great number of children who have been born to parents in our church this past year. We ourselves brought forth a child ten months ago, and it was the advent of our son in conjunction with the seemingly weekly announcements of new pregnancies that have caused me to survey our congregation and take note of its distribution between the married and unmarried. Those in the married camp have consistently outnumbered those in the unmarried, and I fear that one day most of those who currently belong to the latter will eventually be assimilated like Borg into the former. I know that other singles will come to take their place, but I wonder how many of those new singles will choose celibacy -- not "succumb to" or "resign themselves to" -- but *choose* it as a lifelong vocation, and I wonder how many students here at Fuller Seminary can and will do the same.

As I've gotten older maybe I've just become more prejudiced against other married folk, or maybe I just wish I could devote the same amount of time and energy to some of the activities I was involved with as a single person now. It doesn't really matter; either way, I do wish more Christians followed the path of singleness. Being single has its advantages, very significant one that one doesn't often realize until they're gone. I'm not talking about trivial things like being able to hit Vegas with your buddies on an hour's notice but about those that St. Paul reminds the Corinthian church of in his first epistle:

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. I say this for your benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord. (7:32-35 NRSV)

Though these words were written two thousand years ago to an audience very different from mine, some things never really change. It's still true that once you get married, a lot of your time turns to activities that you simply didn't have to worry about before: choosing a new paint color for the kitchen, for example, or making sure that last night's dishes are wished and your son is fed before you go off to work. And, just like then, "devotion to the Lord" (v. 35) can mean a lot things, not just working as a full-time missionary or being a prayer warrior. It can mean spending hours interrupted in a meditative state, creating a piece of art that turns out to be so good and so full of life that it brings great joy to those who view it. It can mean spending weeks and months negotiating with peers and managers in the hopes of bringing about a new arrangement that will improve the lot of an ignored minority at the workplace. Both of these can be considered ministries, "unhindered devotion to the Lord" and marriage can distract one from such pursuits. At the same time, it can also offer great happiness and satisfaction. Being single and being married are two very different vocations, but both, when pursued faithfully and conscientiously, lead us to love ourselves and our neighbors as God intends.

If you're single, perhaps you don't want to hear this because you suspect I've forgotten some of the hardships of being single. I haven't. I remember what it's like: the anxiety, the loneliness. Sometimes in the back of our heads we hope that being married will end some of that. But it doesn't, it just ends up looking different. You still must strive daily to find contentment in God and in yourself.

So please listen to this final appeal. This world that God so dearly loves needs you to do the many things that we married people can't. There are certain vocations, certain callings that, because of the toll they take on time and energy, aren't really meant for married folk. Sure, married people can still engage in them, but such engagement often comes at a price -- one, sadly, which spouse and children up paying. If you're single, I can't stress enough how precious a gift your time is and how you can use it to benefit the various communities to which you belong. Believe me. Let my words encourage you. Reflect on what you most love of your passions, interests, and the things that really move you and those around you, and consider whether or not, you can still participate in them and offer them to the world if you were to get married.

Should you choose singleness, there will undoubtedly be those who will pity you for doing so and believe that such a choice will forever keep you from finding your place in life. My advice? Be single anyway. Jesus was, and if you are infused with his Spirit, while you may not be able to do so with the same degree of regularity or success as he, I believe you will find how to devote yourself wholly to God, to be filled his with love, joy, and peace -- not in spite of, but through, and in accordance with, your singleness.

I'm Addicted to Settlers but My Wife Says it's OK

2010-03-05T09:48:00.001-08:00

I'm #6 right now. I was #4 but I lost too many games since then. I realize that I tend to have a blind spot when it comes to having the longest road. I even lost a game once because I tried buying a development card when all I needed to do was buy a city after I picked up longest road and a settlement.

Fatherhood and Overpopulation

2010-03-05T07:25:00.000-08:00

Before I became a dad I knew it would be a tough gig. On the one hand I knew it would be fun and exciting; on the other, doesn't this fucking world has way enough people in it already?

So why did God choose me to be a dad? What's his purpose in it all?

You know, if I'm honest with myself I was reluctant to be a dad for a couple of reasons, and it wasn't just because of my fear of overpopulation. It's also because deep down I feel that life just plain sucks, that end of the day, it's just not worth perpetuating. There's too much evil in this world, too much violence, too much hatred.

But I also know deep down that God loves this world, that he enjoys it, and that if I had enough faith and the eyes to see it, I'd see the beauty of this world...I'd see what God sees. I'm not saying that I'd finally see the world as perfect, but I guess what I'm saying is that I'd believe that there's a chance that it can be what it was ultimately intended to be.

That's what it means to live life with hope. It means believing that what we do really makes a difference, with God's help. It's like being 8 years old and taking an art class from an experienced artist and painting something that, for being 8, is pretty good -- but only for an 8 year old. Then God, like the Master Artist, takes what the 8 year old painted, touches it up here and there, adds some coloring, some shading, some depth, and all of a sudden, it's a whole lot grander and better. It's still the kid's piece, I mean at it's core, but it's also God's at this point.

This is what it means for God to participate with us and we with him.

This is how we have to view our lives here on earth. A continual work, a continual struggle, a constant prayer. If we believe the words of Christ and the words of his saints and prophets, we know that all this won't be in vain. To believe this is the meaning of hope, that God can take our imperfect work and perfect it in the culmination of time.

So getting back to my son, what does it all mean? I guess it means raising a son who, hopefully will be a lot less cynical than his dad, and who will one day care about the world, who'll put his hand to the plow like those before him and work towards what matters.

I pray that he succeeds.

Giving the Customer What He/She Wants

2010-03-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

There's an old adage that the customer is king. That may be true, but keeping the customer happy is not always in your or even his/her best interest.

Where I work are always asking asking for a lot of different types of IT-related help. Can you install this? Can you install that? Can I have this? Can I have that? Oftentimes we go out of our way to try to service these people all in the name of customer service -- as if giving them what they want will truly make them happy.

You know, come to think of it, that's an interesting question: Does getting what I want make me happy? If I'm told no, will I become unhappy?

I suspect is that getting what one wants in and of itself never really makes a person happy or unhappy. It really depends on what it is, what the reasons are for asking in the first place, and what the reasons were for granting or accepting a given request. There's that saying, "I'll give you what you want, but will you want what I give you?"

People where I work complain a lot that IT isn't very helpful, that we never really attend to their needs. It's true. Oftentimes we're hard-pressed for time. The reality is that a lot of the stuff that really should be attended to isn't and the stuff that I would consider more or less spurious is, just because those who are asking for it to be done or given are either top executives or faculty.

The fact is that people at all levels whine. But I've never considered it a service to go out of my way to try to change that perception, especially if my only reason for doing so is so that I can feel better about myself.

If I really want to make an employee happy it's not getting her everything she wants or about feeding her the latest gadget or service. The essentials of creaing an environment that will foster happy employees are fairly straightforward, and, trust me, they have very little to do with IT, though much of what people ask for these days is IT-related.

What makes an employee happy is as follows.

A happy employee is one who is treated with dignity and respect, not only as a member of the team, but most importantly as a human being whose meaning and purpose lie beyond simply what she can offer within her 8-hour work day. Ironically, when you treat an employee as such, in the long run, such employees produce more for your institution, giving of themselves personally, intituitively, creatively. A happy employee is one who is able speak to those around her and feel as if she is being heard. A happy employee is one who is allowed to influence those decisions in the workplace that most affect her. A happy employee is one who feels a solidarity and bond with not only those within her team but with her superiors. A happy employee is one who feels recognized for her contributions. A happy employee is one whose job has meaning, who is supervised, though not micromanaged, and whose job changes as the needs of the organization changes.

I mentioned earlier that not getting what one wants isn't always bad. Does that conflict with saying that one can't influence the decisions of those around oneself? Yes and no. The most important thing is not necessarily getting what one asks for, but being able to sit down with the people who have rejected one's request and being able to ask, "Why can't I have this? What detriment do you see to my receiving this? How would providing this affect your work schedule or your future commitments?" It's these types of questions that help people from different departments understand each other, to gain some visibility into each others' work lives, which is important for building trust.

Saving Time (and Money) in Information Technology

2010-03-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

The fundamentals of saving time and money in information technology are fairly straightforward. It seems that where I work we tend to focus too much on the latter and not a whole lot on the former.

Any electronic device, any information technology service, any software application requires time to set up. But this is not the most important thing to remember. It also requires time to maintain as well. And this is the most important aspect of any software decision: whether or not any such device, service, or application is worth all the headache (and time) it will cause your information technology department in the future.

If we believe this tenet, that any device, service, or application will end up at some point require some form of maintenance, then we must also believe that the more of such devices, service and applications one establishes, the more time will be spoken for on behalf of the IT department every year, and at some point -- various points, really -- additional staff will need to be hired.

Let's look at a desktop computer as our first example of a device which will require some form of maintenance in the future: drivers become corrupted, applications break, malware finds its way in, the computer itself slows down -- all these symptoms require remediation and thus time on the part of the IT staff. So often we take for granted the fact that computers always break, that that's just the nature of the business, that that's the reason we hire IT staff, to be able to fix these things when they break.

But just as with our own bodies there are better ways to manage them than to only call the doctor whenever something goes wrong. We can take better care of our computers, we can configure them in ways that will make them less susceptible to damage and infestation. We can even reduce the number of computers on campuses overall. This last idea may seem the most radical, to suggest that not every employee may need a desktop computer, but I'm fairly certain that it's true and will discuss this later in the essay.

I have to confess a little bit of a bias at this point. I believe that Microsoft Windows is not as stable an operating system as Linux or the current Mac operating systems that are built on Unix. It would be worthwhile to study how much time has been spent in the past maintaining Windows computers versus Mac computers to see if my suspicion is justified. If it is, then one approach to reducing the time spent maintaining computers on campus would be to convert all Windows computers to Linux and to provide only Macs or PCs w/ Linux for future desktop replacements/installations.

My other suspicion is that most of what we have to fix as IT staff is software-related, not hardware-related. Perhaps malware broke something, or perhaps a tool was upgraded and in doing so another tool or application that shared a software library with this upgraded tool suddenly finds that it can't use this new version of the shared software library. Or maybe a completely new application was installed, but the makers of this application were sloppy and the application updates and changes software libraries it should leave untouched. In any case, the strength of the computer, that its software can be easily configurable, becomes its weakness and the complexity of the interrelations between all the various software applications and tools fall prey to Murphy's Law.

Can such occurrences be reduced? We do a little bit of this already by preventing Windows users Administrative Access, a system level privilege that would normally allow them to install any software they desire. But I believe we could go a step further. I'd argue that because of the presence of malware, free software, and toolbar add-ons, if someone can do their job effectively and joyfully without the need for Internet access, it should simply be removed. That's right. This can be done by simply removing the network card. Even as I write this, I realize that some people would find such a measure drastic, perhaps even a bit Draconian, but if you really think about it, there's nothing really wrong with such a suggestion. It wasn't until the last ten years (even though computers had been around for a while), that Internet access became commonplace. I remember in first job out of college, one had to request Internet access to be requested before one could surf the net. (As an aside, I remember asking for access than asking that it be taken away because it become such a distraction).

I believe that certain employees need Internet access, especially those whose primary service to our institution involves a lot of online research. For them, Internet access at their desktop is essential. But for the rest of us, I'm not so sure. This is not to say that we could not provide certain accommodations. Suppose for example that in an office of ten, one needed to be on the Internet constantly, two never, and seven every now and then. Why not provide an Internet connection to the one who is always using it, then setup a common workstation in the middle of the office where anyone can walk to to use the Internet on the occasions that they need it? Everyone uses email where I work, but it can often be a distraction. Such a setup, where there is a central computer where people look things up on the Internet, could also be great for people checking their email. Of course, people would have to rely more heavily on "quainter" methods such as c alling someone or walking over to their office, but I believe the quality of our interactions would be greatly enhanced as a result. In cases where a document is sent via email, the sender could call the recipient who then could take his/her thumb drive to the common Internet station, download the document, then go back to his/her computer to view it.

So what about this reliance on certain electronic technology? Are we overly dependent on things that add unwarranted complexity to the infrastructure of our work environment? Do we bring certain technology (mobile devices, for example) only because of their ubiquitous nature outside the work place and because we (erroneously) feel that we can't live without them? How have the use or, perhaps more accurately put, misuse, of personal computers, email, web pages, streaming audio/video, really added value to the quality of education and training we provide at our seminary? Have our graduates come out to be better thinkers, more capable pastors, more empathetic therapists since the advent and application of these things? Have we calculated how much these devices cost, not just in terms of money but perhaps more importantly in terms of how much time they cost us to procure, configure, maintain, and upgrade, and asked ourselves what we've gotten back in return? When have we achieved real efficiencies and we have we done nothing more than occupied ourselves with newer, grown-up toys that help us only to feel as if we're being more productive at our jobs?

To Live and Die in Pasadena

2010-02-10T08:22:00.001-08:00

Back in 2002, soon after the tides of the dot com bust were beginning to swell, I got laid off it in its wake -- though I didn't take it to heart for too long. Trying to figure out what to do next I decided I didn't want to go back to software development but to try something different, something more "right-brained". I decided to pursue my second love, theology, here at a seminary in Pasadena. So after briefly moving from the Westside to my parents' house, I said goodbye to my commute along the 210 and moved here to Pasadena, several years later marrying a woman who was working and studying there, too. After a year and a half, she and I met a group of people, most of whom were we living on the same block just right across the other side of the freeway from the seminary and as soon as we could we secured a rental house in their neighborhood.

Community has always been important to me. Maybe it's I was an only child and didn't have a lot of peers nearby. But it's also important for my wife, too, who (interestingly enough) grew up with seven brothers and sisters. At some point during our stay here we got the crazy notion of planting ourselves where we are now, the 500 block of North Madison Ave, to build a life here, maybe even grow old with some of our new friends and neighbors.

There's one thing that's nagged at me, though: I don't know what will happen to our property in the future. Will our rent be raised? Will the owner's children inherit it? If the latter, will they sell it, cashing in on some easy money in exchange for the steady income but rigorous amount of responsibility and headache that come with the lofty title of "landlord"?

I just don't know. Others on our block have talked about buying property to avoid similar, supposed scenarios. But despite the recent dips in home prices, it's still pretty expensive out there, and I'm not sure I want to devote every one of our hard-earned dollars just to meet mortgage, insurance, and property tax bills.

At the end of the day, I feel like houses in and around our neighborhood are priced way too high. Why should we pay a premium just because everyone and their mother wants to move to this great city? Why should we pay a premium just because, for whatever reason, people feel as if owning a home affords them a certain sense of status and security, and because of their need for these, are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a Pasadena property, thereby inflating (beyond my reasonable reach) the market prices of homes in my neighborhood? Why should we pay a premium when, in general, the only reason it ever makes financial sense for one to own versus rent, if one never plans on selling one's home, is that mortgage interest and property tax is subsidized by current tax codes -- codes I consider to unfairly favor the rich over the poor since only the rich (or at least upper middle class) can afford to buy a house here? Do I really want to buy into such a system and become part of such an overprivileged class?

Well...sort of. I would like to own my own home on this block someday, even if for both purer and more selfish reasons. I could try to justify the expense by telling myself that our property tax would help support county services, jobs, and public education, or by telling myself that we could pass off the property to our own son someday so that he doesn't have to face the same dilemmas we're facing now. But that's a long way off and prices are still high.

Maybe I should just wait for Pasadena to implement rent control.

On second thought, I won't hold my breath for that (though I do believe that a prudent, well-thought out implementation might do our city some good) but will instead try to focus on what's in front of me right now: family, friends, and the greater Pasadena community, many of whom are burdened with much more pressing matters like staying dry, getting their own apartment, or finding work. And with regards to where we live, in the meantime we'll enjoy this house as our own despite the inconsequential fact that county records won't show it as being registered in our name. We'll continue to laugh in it, decorate it, host dinners in in, even upgrade it, regardless of whether or not the IRS provides us tax incentives for doing so since we're not the official owners. Like John Burroughs in his poem "Waiting", I've decided to "rave no more 'gainst time or fate" in the hopes that the houses I seek "are seeking me".

My thanks and apologies, Mr. Burroughs.

#1 at Settlers

2010-01-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

There's a site that I often visit when my willpower is low or when I'm just feeling in the mood for a fight, and that site is www.jsettlers.com. If you're not familiar with it it's a site where you can play others Settlers of Catan. What's addicting about this site is that you can get in a game pretty easily and it keeps track of a ladder -- you know, #1 through #x. I like this because this has helped me decide what, besides bonding with my son Jude, I would like to do with my paternity leave, be #1 at Settlers. Tonight the first game is at 9:17 PM and I'm ranked just below 200. I've named the game "shouldn't be playing ntrr7". I've just been sandbagged by evets -- for those of you who don't know, being sandbagged means being singled out by another player in order to increase one's one chances of winning.

I am unlucky at Settlers today. I just lost. Now I am ranked #209.

Thoughts on IT at Fuller

2009-12-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

As I see it, the biggest challenges providing, servicing, and using information technology here at Fuller are the following:

1) There exists inequity with regards to the amount of attention we give to requests from faculty (a professor's request to fix his Franklin Covey application or find him an alternative task manager), compared to the amount of attention we give to regular staff for similar requests.

2) There seems to be no simple way for people from different departments to work together on IT-related initiatives. Often there is no project manager, and when there is one, she rarely if ever have the authority to be able to “own” her participants for however long she needs them for her particular project. Furthermore, various such projects may be going on simultaneously at a given point in time, and the institution has never prioritized those initiatives between project managers (or more commonly, directors) so that each knew and understood in which order they were to be completed.

3) IT proper is both understaffed and overstaffed. Some of us are taxed beyond our means or capacity. Others of us are underutilised. All of us have job descriptions and expectations placed upon us that are much too narrow to make the most of our time and talents.

4) Upper management has assumed for too long that pursuing IT-related initiatives were a simple matter of telling one's IT department to work on a problem then expect it to be completed in a timely manner, however loosely “timely” was defined. It has never taken the time and care to understand the complexities of this institution so that it might adapt itself by creating the necessary governance structures that can help bring order to this chaos. It has been naïve in thinking that technology could simply be created independently and dispensed broadly and has been blind to the fact that any truly successful IT initiative requires the participation of, and the deliberation and negotiation between people from all levels and specialties – from Vice Presidents to CIOs to directors to line-level staff – especially considering the fact that policy, business process, and technology all inform one another, and that the evolution of the three is not linear, but rather dialectic and circular.

5) No one really knows how to best fit in all these various initiatives into the everyday tasks that make up our “normal” workdays – and this applies both to IT staff as well as non-IT staff. We make it a point to find out how much money a piece of software or hardware costs and often jump right in before doing the just as important but much more difficult work of forecasting how many person hours it will take to put this software or hardware into place, not to mention how much additional time it will take to maintain such technology on ongoing basis once established. In short, we have a hard enough time understanding how our own staff spend their person hours to begin with, so it becomes difficult to gage how aggressively we should push or how willingly we should abandon certain initiatives based on the impact they might have on current or future workload.

6) Finally, when it comes to choosing which technologies to buy and implement at our institution, I fear that more often than not we act like young boys or girls in front of a big spread. The food's before us, there's lots of it, and there's all kinds, but unfortunately for us, all we can focus on and all we put on our plate are the desserts and “filler” food. We don't choose based on sustenance or nutrition or health, but rather what tastes good at the time. Information technology doesn't have to be expensive. But if it is, it's usually because we lack the discretion, discipline, and wisdom to understand ourselves, what (in the final analysis) we are really trying to accomplish, and how technology can and should play a role in that.

Note from Friend

2009-10-29T12:10:00.001-07:00

I received a note from a friend the other day and I thought it was worth recording, so here it is in my blog. I've taken liberty to change certain words and phrases, but I've left it for the most part intact.

I guess I just wanted to let you know that you are loved.

Quite simply.

I think sometimes in life we seek to know that we are loved ... but for those of us who don't believe that love exists or suspect its consistency, we go about searching for it. That search takes many forms: the affirmation from a woman, the respect of a man, or the accomplishment of a goal. Either way the search has the opposite effect of removing us from the object of study; love becomes something we look for but do not receive.

Christ talks about love in a lot of ways, but he defines faith, too, in the context of both love and trust. Those combined constitute what we Christians call faith. This faith is opposed to knowledge, which, once understood, becomes an idol and removes us from any dependency on it. So faith, like a child, is composed of trust, which when sought to quantify ... isn't capable of being fully felt.

We don't have to love ourselves first, or even give others reasons to love us (which wouldn't really be love anyway) in order to believe we are loved. Like God's love freely given, we simply receive. It is a gift we either receive or choose not to receive. But even before we feel love, we are loved, and by opening ourselves to that love, come to love ourselves even more. Similarly, Scripture tells us, that even while we were still sinners Christ loved us and longed to call us his children. Still, it remains that in dying that we receive eternal life. Only in opening ourselves to that love do we finally receive it. Not that when we have absolute certainty of it, but simply when we submit to its powers.

There are many who love you, myself, Glory, your Dad, Bert, and Monty, to name a few. Even the small one who is yet to realize how much love has for you. Even greater than these, God loves you, for there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

Anyway...I'm not sure how to close...

Your brother in Christ.

A Tribute to John Francis

2009-08-27T17:04:00.001-07:00

Today I wanted to write a tribute to John Francis, the man who, forty years ago, decided to stop driving and to stop receiving rides from others. Stories on the web tell of how as a young man he had witnessed the collision of two oil tankers in the San Francisco Bay and how days later he began experimenting with getting around by foot. Maybe I can relate to him a little, at least in his distaste for cars. I can't say that I'm a purist; just last week I drove my family and in-laws to Palm Springs in a van we had borrowed from a friend. I've received rides every now and then when it has been inconvenient to not do so, though I do most of my traveling by foot, by bike, or by light rail and bus, which, admittedly, runs on oil.

What is it about his story that fascinates me? The fact that not only did he choose not to take advantage of the luxury of expediency (not to mention the appearance of normalcy) that the modern automobile provides, but that he took upon himself a vow of silence for seventeen years to protest our world's reliance on oil. Sure, from the stories told about him, and believe it or not, mainly from the stories he tells about himself, he was probably quite arrogant in his attitude of moral superiority. Yet at the same time, as I read about his life and the way that others perceived him, he also strikes me as one who is and was a man of deep conviction.

I've said before that I believe that global warming is one of the most dangerous phenomenons we face today and probably also in the history of humankind through her various eons of evolution. The more I think about global warming, the more I am inclined to believe that because more people equals more waste, more pollution, and further ecological degradation, especially given our uncritical use of standard manufacturing, distribution, and disposal methods, overpopulation is the biggest danger we face today. We forget that we are able to sustain highly dense urban populations because of the fact that oil allows us to ship food and goods across states and nations. But when that oil runs out, will we be able to continue to do this? This laptop I'm writing on, the bicycle that I will use to ride home, the rice cooker I will use to cook the rice that was shipped from God knows where, all of these will be in danger of disappearing in the lives of my progeny, or at least being very difficult to obtain, when we oil runs out and we don't have an easy means of shipping everything from everywhere to everywhere.

So what does this mean for our future? It means that we better find alternative energy sources for maintaining our global economies or we better rely on our local resources and local activities for sustaining local populations. When we realize that harvesting alternative energy resources is itself a very energy-intensive activity, we will turn once again to depending on the land and resources that are near to where we live to provide for our basic needs as well as our personal and commercial activities -- and when we get to this point, we will find ourselves very concerned about population density and the overcrowding of certain regions, especially regions that don't normally have a lot of food or water.

But perhaps this shouldn't worry us now, given the fact that we won't know what a sustainable population for a region is until we run out of the oil it takes to ship food and other goods in from other places. Maybe it's a problem that's better left unsolved until we're forced to reckon with it. The problem, however, is that while we continue to produce, consume, and dispose of things the earth keeps getting hotter, not to mention the fact that the force and frequency of "natural" disasters continues to increase across the globe, even in Upstate New York where, according to my sister-in-law, a winter bereft of snow was followed by a spring and summer filled with mini-tornados and rain torrents she could not remember seeing the likes of which throughout her life. Pasadena has been hot lately -- it's usually pretty hot in August -- but unnaturally so. Brush fires have abounded the past two years -- there have been two just this past month. How much of this is due to climate change and how much of is it is just coincidence?

It can be argued that many of these phenomenon are temporary and that far worse conditions have arisen in times not too long ago. But one phenomenon that to me proves that serious changes in our climate are occuring is the melting of the polar ice caps. This is a phenomenon that is well-documented and observable and, to my knowledge, has no precedent in modern (and by modern I mean within the last six millenia) history. Again, the question is not so much are we experiencing global warming, but rather what is causing it? Is it the consumption of oil and its byproduct entering into the atmosphere? Is it other factors beyond our control?

This really is the sticking point. From a rational point of view, I can't really prove that our cars are causing a lot of the atmospheric warming that's happening around us. But I can tell you this. That ever since I've lived in Los Angeles I've realized how much we take gasoline and driving and commuting for granted. We've gotten used to the exhaust that comes out of our vehicles, forgetting that it can cause asthma in certain children and even lead to cancer. We've forgotten how nice it is to have a quiet street and a quiet neighborhood or to go shopping in a mall or among a group of vendors where 3/4 of the area is not bare asphalt reserved for people moving back and forth in these ubiquitous vehicles. We've forgotten what it's like to walk down a sidewalk and look people in the eye and smile and say, "Good Morning". It's a foreign thing to us to walk around our block, to feel connected to our surroundings and to our neighbors and to the landscape, to be immersed in these and be a part of them rather than to simply pass through them as observers.

Motherfucker...Loving it

2009-06-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

I love the word "motherfucker". Who came up with this word? How long has it been in play? This word is older than one might think. I remember reading an article about Dinah Washington -- she once confronted a heckler in the audience using the word "motherfucker". I also remember a scene in Bullworth -- you know, that show with Warren Beatty who plays a senator who all of a sudden has nothing to lose because he's got a contract out on his life -- where Bullworth is trying to "mac" on the young African American woman played by Halle Berry. The woman's brother notices Bullworth's advances and says to him, "You ain't no real nigga, is you?" Then Bullworth retorts back, "Is you a real nigga?" Then her brother, out of disbelief, shouts back, "You callin' me a nigga, motherfucker?" And then (here's my favorite line) Bullworth looks back, smiles, and says, "Would you prefer motherfucker, motherfucker?"

Loving it.

Oh, one more thing. I visit prisoners over in a federal holding center in downtown L.A. One of the guys I visit has this tattoo on his head that says, "Love Me, Don't Hate Me, Motherfucker!" I told Glory I would have the same creed etched on my person, not on my head (that would hurt), but on my arm.

Love me, everyone!

The Letter I Sent to Our Provost

2009-04-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Sherwood,

Together we find ourselves in a strange, foreign situation, seeing some of our friends having to leave the seminary because of budget cuts, and having to make some decisions that will require other members of our community to leave as well. I've been really disheartened by all that's going on around me, I've been distracted at work – it's even been difficult to know how to put into words all that's going on inside of me.

My friend Steve got laid off about a month ago. I found out about it, believe it or not, through a report that one of my colleagues set up to find any changes that occur on a Banner employee table. The report picked up on the fact that the latest version of the table didn't have Steve's information. It told me he had been terminated and so I went over to the office of his supervisor Vao Mose to confirm the news and, of course, it was true.

I'm very sad about Steve. Despite the opinion of those responsible for his departure he was a good worker. This letter is not an attempt to dispute or discredit their decision, but their decision and my recollection of it are a segue into the larger array of issues I wish to explore here.

Everything seems to be going so fast. On the schedule you showed at our staff meeting a few weeks ago, you, the oversight committee, and the ART and ORT, along with the board of directors, would be making some pretty drastic changes within the span of a couple of months. I was amazed and frightened at how quickly all this would happen. Perhaps I was reading too much into the situation, but I felt as if I could read some of the same diffidence even in the eyes of the speakers that day.

I work in the same building as Jane Doe. I had heard that she had sent a letter to you suggesting that we, all of us, take a pay cut in order to preserve jobs. I confirmed this and asked her for copy of her original email and of your response.

I agree with her suggestion, and I also agree (with you) that there are systemic problems that need to be addressed. In fact, I don't believe that you two are at all in disagreement with each other. It is in fact possible to imagine a scenario in which salaries and benefits are temporarily reduced in order to be able to meet the immediate crisis of staying in the black while administration is given the ample time it needs in order to make prudent decisions regarding how the the three schools can and should be consolidated as well what positions should be eliminated based on plentiful discussions with directors who know best how their office runs, and who, within their departments, should be let go. In fact the only kind of restructuring I know of that can be successful and truly amenable to the institution's health is one that is thorough, well thought-out, and not subject to the immediate pressures which we now face.

Furthermore I understand that the oversight committees are looking for ways to make our organization more “lean”, one definition of which is to cut excess positions that may not be perceived as necessary. I wish to caution you and, by proxy, the committees to remember that most positions are not created simply because an administrator had too much money in his budget at the end of the year and didn't want to have to give it back, or because he/she was feeling kind of lonely and needed one or two more people in the office to keep him/her company. They were created because at the time that administrator found himself/herself in a position in which he/she could not meet the institution's expectation for a given service because the service did not before exist, because it had mutated, or because a higher quality version of it was expected. In such cases, the staffing needs are imposed from without, not from within. For example if, when wireless services had been implemented on our campus, ITS had been fully “tapped out” in terms of having no person-hours to spare, we would have been forced to hire an additional staff person to help manage those services. And if after that hiring, a committee were to evaluate our positions in hoping to find one that could be eliminated, they may not be able to find any, given that, well, everyone was busy doing something. But what they should really have been looking at is not whether or everyone was busy, but what types of institutional demands and expectations made them busy and whether or not these demands and expectations were good ones, and if not, whether they should be eliminated or at the very least mitigated.

I cite first the implementation of wireless because it is visible and we can trace its genesis. We can easily remember how it got here in the first place, how much it cost (in monetary terms), and if we worked hard enough and could tolerate some level of inexactness, we could remember for the most part how many hours each of us put into supporting it since it got here. But there are other services, that, over the years, have become more sophisticated, and because of their sophistication, have required greater and greater levels (in quantifiable terms, hours) of attention.

How we handle information has changed over the years. Bill Roberts, my previous supervisor, was at one time the only employee of what was then known as the Computer Room. This was twenty-five years ago. Since then information management and specifically the transition from a paper-based to an electronic-based infrastructure has required not only new machines, new networks, and new software, but also new types of specialties and skills that are just emerging from the marketplace to meet this new demand. Now our office has nine people – a ninefold increase! If one were to examine ITS with the hopes of finding out whether or not we could still meet the IT-related needs of the seminary if we were to reduce our staffing, one might find that it would be impossible without altering the quality, reliability, security of the information technology infrastructure that the seminary has come to rely on.

But that's the point. We've come to rely on them. Whether or not we knew what we were doing at the time, our current state of affairs is a result of many decisions made along the way by various people; some of these decisions were made with much forethought, like the decision to purchase Banner; others were hasty and haphazard. But cumulatively, those decisions have brought us to the state of complexity which we now find ourselves in, the proverbial bed in which we must lie. I'm sure there are analogies in other areas – advancement, student services, admissions, finance – where a host of decisions (premeditated and otherwise) have caused those areas to become more complex and thus necessitate a greater level of staffing.

It is very easy, especially when it comes to technology, to say that our institution's state of affairs is inevitable given the world we live in, a world where everyone it seems is carrying a cell phone or some other mobile device and has his or her own Internet access at home. It is easy to go along with all this, rationalizing that somehow, it will turn out to be better for us and for those whom we serve if we buy the latest gadgets and the most popular software, for when we do, we will finally achieve those levels of efficiency that we always knew were attainable, but somehow eluded us. And, every now and then, we get lucky; we're happy with the results, at least at first. But when this approach is taken at institution-wide level, by individuals or departments, without discrimination, investigation, or forethought as to how a given technological product or service will not only affect my own department, but those departments around me as well, both now and in the future, we end up more often than not condemning ourselves to becoming dependent on a product that requires a slightly different type of (technological) expertise than what we ourselves have and which will require some type of support from either an outside agency or our own ITS staff. As more and more of these types of products are purchased, they evolve into a system that necessitate the creation of additional in-house infrastructure (like an additional T1 line, for example, for increasing our networks' bandwidth). As the system grows we need more staff to manage it. And so our dependence grows on the systems and on the additional staff as well, and after a while, we simply forget how we got to where we are at.

It takes discipline to say no to things. It takes humility to ask others: Do you think this is a good purchase? How much time will your staff have to put in on a regular basis to manage it? Will it necessitate, either now or in the future, the creation of additional infrastructure to support it? Is there another way of doing this that I might not have considered? Honestly, do I even need this? Even after we have asked these questions we may find ourselves still having made a poor decision. At that point, we must swallow our pride, be willing to concede our losses, and do the harder work of figuring out how to break from this thing that we've become dependent upon.

My point in all this is that there are business processes, cultures, and expectations, both internally and externally, that have caused us to be who we are. We cannot save costs and avoid detriment to our institution's viability without first examining the nature of what we do and why we do it. I know we're already doing that by combining the administrative oversight of the three schools, but if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would acknowledge that there are reasons why each of the schools has evolved to having its own advising and academic programs offices and that simply force-merging them won't remedy or address those underlying factors that caused them to be this way in the first place. And we cannot discover those factors in two months time.

You sent an email out to administrators a few weeks asking us to really think of ways in which we could eliminate excess costs, hopefully with the aim of being able to salvage a couple of jobs that otherwise would have been cut. If a department manager were to feel that his/her staff is overworked as it is and in addition, doesn't have me much room to cut costs in non-labor areas, either, that manager could still help out the seminary by suggesting various ways in which she could cut institution-wide costs, but only if he/she were able to see a spreadsheet or a tally of those areas that cost our institution the most money.

Would it behoove us to provide that type of information? Maybe we could send a report to our seminary community that told us how much we spend in various categories, such as utilities, software licenses, rent, travel/accommodations, and advertising? Wouldn't that be helpful? For example, someone might notice that we spent a lot of money on software licenses and might ask the question, What exactly are we buying? “Well”, someone who knows this side of our business might respond, “A lot of is desktop software, like Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, or Adobe Acrobat, as well as anti-virus software. And our biggest single expenditure is our Banner and Oracle software licenses, which total $160,000 per year.” Then that person might ask whether those things are really necessary or whether or not there are alternatives out there; from there, a conversation between the two could grow to a larger conversation between many. Perhaps with greater awareness across different departments of these and other costs what we can better focus our efforts on the things that really do cost us the most. A macroscopic view is necessary.

If we want our seminary's employees to be lean, they need to feel included. Only when they truly feel included will they truly invest of themselves and draw those energies which heretofore remained dormant. In order to feel included, they must feel empowered. And part of feeling empowered is being in the know, to have access to fiscal data, both for the pragmatic purpose of helping them know where to focus their cost-saving efforts, as well as for making them feel as if the institution trusts them, and that's important. Being fiscally transparent as an institution has the added benefit of adding accountability, not just on a few individuals, but on the seminary as a whole. And, at the end of the day, we might not really know how much damage we're doing to ourselves until someone shows us. You used the cancer analogy in one of our administrator's meeting. Well, maybe another way of putting it is that in order to prevent cancer, you need to every now and then take an MRI; the more eyes you have looking at that MRI, the better chance you have of spotting that cancer early on.

But all this means taking a risk, right? Being vulnerable, being open to criticism. So be it. Do you want people to care about this institution? Do you want them to stay more than just a few years? Then give them a voice. Show them that you care about their opinion. Include them in the decision-making process. Not everything needs to be voted on, but make sure the proper channels exist through which all can truly participate in the decisions that most affect them. Ensure any cost-saving initiative works not only from the top-down but from the bottom-up, too. After all, the greatest efficiencies that you'll see in your people are not those that are imposed from without, but those that come, and are realized from, within.

Compostable Plates: Good or Bad

2009-01-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

I'm no environmentalist, but I applaud the efforts of any who make products of any kind more biodegradable. Everything biodegrades in the end (plastics included); it's just a question of how long the process of decomposition takes, what bi-products are formed during the various stages, and what effects those bi-products have on the larger environment.

With regards to whether or not our church should provide compostable plates for potlucks and other food-related events, I'd like to suggest something that, in my opinion, is the best solution but one which, I suspect, would also be extremely unpopular: to ask each family or member to bring his her own lunch ware.

Let's think about the life cycle of a biodegradable plate or fork. First, you need to harvest the raw resources to create it. Then you need to transport those resources to a manufacturing plant. Once at the plant, the machinery that makes the plate or fork most likely runs on electricity, which itself a form of energy consumption. When the plate or fork is finished being made, it is then then shipped out to some distributors where it can be sold to consumers like you and me. Finally, after this plate or fork is used at one of our potlucks it is thrown away (or composted). If it is thrown away, a garbage truck must come, pick it up, and drop it off at some landfill.

Now consider a ceramic plate or a metal fork. You still must pay the same initial costs associated with harvesting and production. However, given the fact that these items can be used and reused, the initial costs spent, in term of labor, energy, and the consumption of raw material seems, well, better justified. The caveat, of course, is that we must wash our utensils after we have finished eating, and washing itself consumes energy - I don't mean my own physical energy in terms of the effort of having to to roll up my sleeves, get my hands wet, and spend a minute or so to wash my plate or fork after church when I'm itching to hop on the 260 so I can head south to Commerce Casino - I mean the energy it took to transport the water from the Colorado Rockies, or wherever it came from, to the spigot in the kitchen sink from which it is now flowing. As much as I hate the fact that Southern California goes to great lengths to consume and transport more water than she really needs (for example, I consider the water we use to irrigate our lawns and corporate landscaping to be an egregious waste), I'm sure that if one calculated the amount of energy it cost to transport the water I used to wash my lunch ware, it would be a hell of a lot less than the energy it would have taken to distribute and dispose of the biodegradable plate or fork I could have used instead. (OK, truth be told, I'm not 100% sure that the transportation of the water would take less energy, but my intuition points me in that direction, even though the Rockies are pretty far way. Either way, I am sure that's the energy cost of transporting the water is the correct factor to consider from a quantitative perspective.)

Having said this, there is a singly unique, though unquantifiable benefit to bringing one's own lunch ware, a benefit that can be proportional to the amount of inconvenience one experiences in having to lug it around: the opportunity to reflect on and feel the connection between the one(s) who made this object and the one who now uses it - me. Someone, somewhere, made this thing, and every time I use it I may remind myself of God's providence and of the care that human hands exercised in creating it. While it may sound strange initially, my bringing this plate or bowl to church can be a way to partner with those who originally fashioned it, to commune with them through my appreciation, (re)use, and care for this object which is now in my possession and which I hope to be able to use as long as I can and so continue their work.

Formulas for a Livable Wage

2008-09-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about what a livable wage would look like here where I work. I've even come up with some formulas. Here's what I have so far...

Assuming that:

1 person requires a studio apartment
1 couple requires a studio apartment
1 couple + 1 child require a 1 bedroom apartment
1 couple + 2 children require a 2 bedroom apartment
1 couple + 3 children require a 3 bedroom apartment
1 parent + 1 child require a 1 bedroom apartment
1 parent + 2 children require a 2 bedroom apartment
1 parent + 3 children require a 3 bedroom apartment

And that the rents in Pasadena average about:

1 single = $800
1 bedroom = $1100
2 bedroom = $1400
3 bedroom = $1700

And that you can expect the following monthly costs per person:

Transportation: $50 per household member
Food: $100 per household member
Clothing/Toiletries/Other: $50 per household member
Utilities: $50 per household
Education/Training: $250 (for the employee only)

Furthermore, I assume that Federal income tax laws for 2007 are in effect and that:

one's spouse takes in $675 per month before taxes
the employee is taking advantage of the earned income credit

If all these assumptions hold, then a livable wage is as follows:

Single Employee: $8.15/hr
Married Employee: $5.25/hr
Married + 1 dependent: $7.79/hr
Married + 2 dependents: $10.67/hr
Married + 3 dependents: $13.56/hr
Single + 1 dependent: $10.38/hr
Single + 2 dependents: $13.27/hr
Single + 3 dependents: $17.24/hr

The Economic Policy Institute has their own calculator.

A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

2008-08-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to think about other people and what place they have in the kingdom of God. I always joke to my wife about how great I feel about doing or not doing certain things. I really want to be a part of what's happening here -- on earth. Sometimes I wonder what God has in store for certain people. What's my job? How do I know where they're headed? What part do I have to play in their lives? What part do we have to play together?

Just recently I found out that one of the women we're supporting as a missionary just purchased central air conditioning. That really upset me. It's hot as hell where we live and I began the day complaining to my wife about how we do this and that to mitigate heat and here this woman goes and spends (partly our!) cash on a cooling unit. But you know what? At the end of the day she is called to do what she is called to do. She may not be concerned about cooling costs or about electricity usage as much as we do. And perhaps she may be more sensitive to the temperature inside her living space. In either case it's up to each of us to listen to God's call in our lives and to perform it to the best of our ability.

Advice? I don't want to give advice anymore, not unless it's asked of me. I have to much shit going on in my own life to worry about correcting someone else's. There have been times when I have felt (rightly) compelled to speak into someone else's life, but those times are rare.

Thank God.

First Entry

2008-07-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of my participating in the (currently) popular pastime of online blogging. OK, I guess it's not entirely true that it's my first day, since about three years ago I did have a blog up on xanga.com, where, by the way, I really liked my portrait, which was not a photograph but rather a sketch I had made using Microsoft paint.

I work at an institution of higher education here in Southern California. One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was so that people, via my blog, could discuss one topic in particular: the equity of the wages being paid to its staff, particularly to those lowest on the pay scale. It is a very touchy topic for people at all levels -- board members, upper level management, supervisors, and line-level staff. To raise salaries for any given position(s) commits the seminary to raising additional money for future years, as long as that position is filled. To keep salaries as is, if salaries are not seen by those who receive them as being fair, will eventually lead to or further intensify dissatisfaction, discouragement, and disillusionment on the part of staff.

I make a good salary where I work. I probably have one of the highest paid non-supervisory positions. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about or care about those who make less, much less, than me. There are many here who make under $30,000 per year, and a few who make just above $10 per hour working full-time. I'm assuming most who read this blog either work where I work or live within thirty miles, but for those who don't or who have just moved into this area and are not familiar with housing costs, let me assure you, rent can be pretty darn expensive, which means that $30,000 here won't get you as far as, say, Lawrence, Kansas.

I talked to one of my friends at work about some of my concerns, and we settled on the fact that the first question that needs to be answered is the following:

Does any institution, and particularly our own, have a moral obligation to pay each of its staff a just wage?

You can define "just" as you wish and answer the question accordingly. For those who need a little guidance, I borrow my definition as one that provides for an employee "a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, article 2434).