I’m not comfortable with that (#^&!@*#)

I have existed primarily in a small, relatively “bubbled” town for the past several years, so I’m not sure how broadly applicable my impression is, but I have the feeling that society is increasingly comfortable with using foul language in a greater number of settings.  And I’m not comfortable with that.

Based on a sizable swath of my own interactions, I note that, the longer you’ve known someone, or the longer a conversation extends, the more likely it is that the other side will degenerate into foul language.  It never occurs right away.

I meet with a co-worker with whom I’ve established rapport.  Conversation has always been fine when we talk by phone (he’s in another location), but after we have a second and third face-to-face meeting, he has grown more comfortable, and he begins to use foul language.

I talk with a vendor who’s selling services.  There aren’t many who would start off a conversation with bad language, and he didn’t.  But after we meet a second time, the comfort level grows, and the likelihood is increased.

Part of me feels gratified that the people are comfortable and are letting down their guards; on the other hand, I’m not comfortable with their comfort levels.  They should be uncomfortable using bad language, and especially so if they profess belief in God and are speaking disrespectfully of God things.

Lately I have been showing my discomfort with profanity and coarse language variously, e.g., by exiting conversations semi-abruptly, giving more obvious facial expressions of disapproval, or actually walking out of meetings.  I figure it’s my right, because I’m not comfortable with what’s being said.  (Hey, people protest for different reasons, and at least I’m not doing anything violent.)

Speaking of comfort . . . it should be relatively comfortable for anyone to be able to speak the truth.  Whether it’s the truth about the existence of God, or the fact that certain vaccines have caused harm and done far less good than promised, or the fact that someone who has female genitalia is actually a woman . . . whatever it is, I figure the truth should be readily spoken, with relative comfort.

If my mentioning God in a conversation were to make someone uncomfortable, I think I could perceive that and would not continue to make the person uncomfortable (unless the person indicated that he wanted to continue anyway, despite discomfort).  But why is it that someone’s discomfort in hearing certain truths tends to win out, socially disallowing me to speak, whereas my discomfort over someone else’s foul language is seen as a problem of mine?  In one analysis, it’s a matter of courtesy.  Anyone should be able to perceive discomfort in the other person, and adjust speech accordingly.

For more:

Sobriety check

What to do . . . what to do?

A different kind of irreverence

xPosted from Subjects of the Kingdom

For those not subscribed to my other blog, “Subjects of the Kingdom,” here are links to the last six months of posts there.  If you tire of other topics here, perhaps you’d like to read some of these:

• Klavan’s careless comment
• Four reasons
• Ruth: theological (sequel to the Ruth post on this blog)
• Loyalty lyrics in a song of exhortation
• The good news of Jesus as the reigning authority
• Borderless: imperative in one case; utter nonsense in another
• Remnants and replacements
• Allegiance and a pledge
• David French: presumed expert says a couple worthwhile things
• Of Israel, Israelis, and antisemitism: some rejectable notions

The presence and fading of inspiration (whatever that is)

As I write this, it is April 22—the morning after my final ensemble concert here as conductor.  I will no longer be using these essential tools here.

Whatever “inspiration” is, I think it was in play most of the way toward this performance.  In fact, the way some of the peripheral cookies crumbled, I would have quit a while back if I hadn’t felt regular inspiration in doing music with these good people.  But the inspiration I felt actually began to fade even before the concert.  To an extent, I was just going through the motions.  I expected to be teary-eyed on multiple occasions, but I was not actually emotional. . . .

Not when I wrote a few emails to thank people for their extraordinary contributions.

Not during the final spot-check rehearsal.

Not when I gave the pre-concert pep talk.

Not during any of the beautiful music I got to conduct.

And not even when I spoke with people after the concert.

I did feel something later, while reading a couple of the notes I received, so it’s not a lack of emotive capacity in general.  I would guess, rather, that I was experiencing a fading inspiration with this particular music-making enterprise.

Even a lack of such inspiration is difficult to describe immediately after.  It’s a kind of emptiness, a lack of energy.  It could very well be that I’m subconsciously distancing myself, protecting myself from more pain.  I think I’m fearful of not having the opportunity to feel inspired over this kind of music-making again.  (I later enjoyed a couple of other music activities, e.g., poring over horn part assignments and related details for an upcoming Pinnacle Winds cycle, and simply playing some piano at home, but I don’t think those were “inspired” in the same way.  Maybe in a different way?)

Being “inspired” can carry more than one connotation, including these:

• a vague, “encouraged” or emotionally energized feeling
• a perceived deep or high quality in a work of art, e.g., a poem, a painting, or a piece of music
• a sense of how the scriptures came to be (i.e., “God inspired the scriptures”)
• whatever Paul meant with his single-use word theopneustos (God-breathed) in 2Tim 3

We might also probe by breaking the English word down:  IN-SPIR-ation.  An “in-ness” of the spirit?  When secular speech employs this term, what spirit is referred to?  And how is it “in” me?  We probably shouldn’t project this Spirit-in line of thinking back onto the unique NT word theopneustos carelessly.

I recall that I have an “Inspiration” blog category.  This post doesn’t neatly fit in that category, but I’ll check that box, anyway.  I feel myself getting off track, and that’s what one sense of the word “inspiration” can do when the context is suggesting a different sense.

What’s next, after this concert, and after the death of this particular kind of inspiration, for now?  I could seek to be enspirited differently.  Perhaps some composition and arranging?  I would like to be inspired, to feel inspired, to use inspiration, and to inspire others again soon.

On having been “inspired”

It’s May Day.  That means nothing to me, but it once meant something to my mother.¹  Regardless, it seems like a new-beginning-of-something day.  Perhaps a day to be inspired?

Below is something my grandfather wrote 80 years ago.  This brief article, whose title was taken from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, was a part of an inspirational series in a periodical.  I hadn’t known anything about these articles until my late uncle bound them and made them available to the family.  This particular piece speaks eloquently of a kind of inspiration that’s much like what I have felt with music ensembles.  I’ll share this article today and then some personal musings on “inspiration” tomorrow.

When Soft Voices Die

On Monday night last fourteen voices blended in the music of “Now the Day is Over,” and fourteen hearts felt the significance of its words.  It was the last song to be sung publicly by the Lipscomb radio choristers of 1939-40.  The group had just concluded a tour cf a number of northern cities and was giving a farewell program for the homefolk at David Lipscomb College.  The voices of seven young men and seven young women united in

Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh;
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.

When the morning wakens,
Then may I arise
Pure, and fresh, and sinless
In Thy holy eyes.

As on a single breath, then they sang “amen.”  Soft voices died and a never-to-be-forgotten trip was over.  A year of work was finished.

I was a fifteenth member of this group, its leader.  As such, when I remember the hours of work during the school year and the lives of these young people whom I have known so well, I am moved to pay tribute to Christian youth and to music which made them better.  In a world of greed and strife there remain noble hearts devoted to the cause of right.  Many of these are young hearts, hearts which beat high with love, hope, and devotion.  I have seen young people who are loyal; I have noticed them grow in unselfishness; in trials I have seen them go to God for strength; in joy they have thanked him for his wondrous care.  I have laughed with them and played with them.  We have worked and worshiped together.  Song united us and gave us opportunity to know each other and to be harbingers of gladness for many.  There is an uplifting and uniting power in music, particularly in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” which we used so much.

On our trip Christians made us happy by their kindness and hospitality.  These were abundant everywhere.  All of us felt, perhaps as never before, the warmth of fellowship that may exist between Christians, even among those who have not known each other before.

We went away from home having thought of serving others, desiring to take hope and joy through song, we prayed earnestly for the care and overruling power of the Almighty that we might grow in his grace, that we might be a blessing to others, and that he might protect us and use us to his glory.  We believe now more than ever, having seen another evidence of it, in the providential guidance of Him who doeth all things well.

As I sit here musing and missing those who grew so deeply into my life and are now gone, I hear their songs, their laughter, their conversations, their prayer; and as I recall the people we met on our trip, I feel all the joy that song and youth gave them, and the joy they received from serving the members of our group.

Having lived with youth while youth was endeavoring to live for others, and having felt Christian fellowship from many who were strangers, my faith is stronger and my life richer.  To the Lipscomb radio choristers, my old friends, to my new friends, and to God, I am grateful.  – A.T. Ritchie, Jr.

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¹ Once upon a time, more than six decades ago, my mother was May Queen at the May Fete at Harding.  That meant they did the “winding the May pole” thing.  Later, the tradition was scuttled, presumably because it was discovered that it had pagan (and inappropriately sexual, and even wicked) origins.  My mother never knew any of that.

TT: things captured and co-opted

This Tuesday Topics installment, with which I intend to commence some kind of diminuendo in the series, will provide examples of the capturing/co-opting of

• education
• being “woke” (a century later)
• grammar
• and even a funeral

Indoctrination of high school students

“An activist group in California has paid nearly 100 public high schoolers $1,400 each to learn how to fight for racial and social justice, The Free Press has learned.

. . .

“It’s unclear which students are eligible for the stipends, but the organization’s website states its “leadership development” programs operate “with a focus on low income youth, youth of color, LGBTQ youth, foster youth, and immigrant youth.”

. . .

“’The way that they are handing scripts to students, even the words coming out of the students’ mouths, the teacher added, ‘it just feels like indoctrination and not information.’

https://www.thefp.com/p/californians-for-justice-paid-1400-highschoolers

This is just one more way that actual education is being supplanted by other things, including SEL (Social and Emotional Learning), ideologically rooted organizations, and more.  The very idea of “woke” ought to be seriously engaged and challenged, not assumed—and certainly not co-opted by outside organizations who stoop to paying teenagers good money to infiltrate and become their activists.  Can anyone say “Hitler Youth” or Lenin’s “Young Pioneers“?

Being awakened to “woke”

It was probably only 3 years ago that I was introduced to the term “woke.”  Someone I’ve known at arm’s length for most of my life referred me to a “Wokish” dictionary, and I initially thought it was a misspelling of “Wookish,” as in the Wookies of Star Wars.  Maybe someone had created a dictionary like the Klingon dictionary of Star Trek?  I quickly learned otherwise.

Some have strongly implied on Facebook that being “woke” is what Jesus would have been.  I’m not sure about that.  If it means being awakened to bona fide racial injustice, Jesus would have been for it, and so am I, but I don’t really think much of that is needed anymore.  Not in the U.S.  Furthermore, to cast a contemporary epithet back 2000 years onto Jesus is as unhelpful as it is anachronistic.  If being woke means thinking all of western society is captured by white supremacy and white privilege, I reject it.

“Woke antisemitism” is also a thing now, as we are hearing about on college campuses.  This essay is worth reading:

https://www.buttonslives.news/p/a-quick-explainer-on-woke-antisemitism

As my readers will know, I am not a Zionist of any kind, and I do think being antisemitic is quite distinct from being Anti-Israeli (which I also am not), despite the connections.  A decent person, let alone a Christian, should not be anti- any person or people group as such.  It is difficult to achieve a logical harmony between “woke antisemitism” and “woke antiracism.”  The former is very real and incorporates being against the Jews as people, all the while nominally claiming to stand for injustice.  Woke antiracism would appear to rule out antisemitism categorically, if it weren’t for so-called “white privilege.”  The whole thing becomes extra-thorny when one realizes that Jews are being included as “whites” now, despite the holocaust history.  Calling for the extermination of Jews (or any other people group) is always wrong, whether it’s because of one’s interest in Naziism, or one’s support for Hamas or other Muslim forces, or one’s distaste for oil interests, or one’s aversion to anything that smacks of of “Judeo-Christian” anything.  The existence of “woke antisemitism” certainly casts aspersions on any wokeness by mere association.

A black acquaintance I’ve known of for several decades asserted that being woke had saved his life at times.  I didn’t know what that meant, but I tried to respect it.  I’ve just today read a jaded but pretty on-target definition of “wokish” (if not “woke”), though:

“Wokish people” are practitioners of intellectual dishonesty who use real or perceived social injustices—i.e., unfair differences in access to opportunity based on ethnic, gender, or other inherent traits—as substrate to push knowingly false and intentionally damaging ideas while aggressively punishing dissenters. Wokish people are to social justice what people like Jerry Falwell and Ted Haggard are to the message of Jesus Christ: Insincere, self-dealing, and ugly to the core.  Kevin Beck substack

What was being woke?  And what is being “woke” today?  Wikipedia captures the difference:

Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.  – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke#

Here is a fair discussion of the terminology viz. culture:  https://www.tidalequality.com/blog/what-is-wokeism

Inasmuch as anything “woke” is attached to the BLM movement, it must be seriously questioned.  Not that BL don’t M.  Of course they do.  But BLM is, like pretty much every other movement, ideologically captured.

Inasmuch as “stay woke” (grammatically awkward as that is) means to stay alert for injustice, such as being falsely accused of a crime, per Lead Belly in his song “Scottsboro Boys,” such a posture should be upheld.  However, being alert to racially charged situations in the 1930s is not the same as BLM activism 90 years later.  A lynching in the deep South in 1930 is one thing.  Rodney King was another, as far as I know.  And all the world deserves to know that the George Floyd incident was quite another.  Even most non-wokes consider that nothing but a murder, because they don’t know anything else.  It was not what was widely known.  So much was concealed during 2020 and beyond.  (More was later published by a Minneapolis news journalist whose husband was on the police force; partial truths and misleading assertions have become part and parcel of aligning oneself with “woke” ideology.)  The idea of being, or staying, woke has been captured and re-appropriated.  Therefore, the connections with the original uses of the word are no longer valid.

Certain poor treatment of women in some churches doesn’t mean women’s rights or women preachers will be a cause for me.  Certain poor treatment of blacks, homosexuals, and trans-identifying people doesn’t mean “staying woke” will be a cause for me, either.

~ ~ ~

I am trying to bring this Tuesday Topics series to a more-or-less natural close.  That doesn’t mean it will happen.  It means I’m tired.  And it also means I’m starting a new series next week.  Looking toward that, and trying to thin my collection of material, I will share one more thing today.

Gender:  four kinds of messed-up

A report on the child of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck caught my eye.  It is yet another gender story, and it’s messed up in four respects.

1. You don’t co-opt a funeral for your own purposes, no matter who you are or what they are.
2. You don’t give yourself a nickname.
3. You can say you’re “non-binary” all you want, but that doesn’t change your sex (which until recently was also your “gender”).
4. You don’t force bad grammar and word use on people in order to force your point of view.  One thing takes a singular pronoun.  So, a clause with the subject “the teen” (singular) is not properly continued with the pronoun “their.”  The teen began her speech, not “their speech.”  (Even “The teen began its speech” would have been better.  If you want to be stupid about sex/gender/identity, at least be grammatically correct.)  Duh.  I can’t believe we’re in a time that one even needs to say stuff like this. . . .   Teenaged, peer-influenced nonsense is one thing, but a supposedly journalistically driven enterprise such as MSN.com should rise above.

“Fin spoke at Jennifer’s father’s memorial service in Charleston, West Virginia, which was live streamed on Facebook.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck‘s middle child, Seraphina Rose, has reintroduced themself as Fin Affleck. The 15-year-old spoke at Jennifer’s late father’s memorial service last weekend in Charleston, West Virginia, which was reportedly live streamed on Facebook.

After taking the podium to speak, the teen began their speech by saying, “Hello, my name is Fin Affleck.” Fin reportedly wore a black suit and tie. Earlier this year, they debuted their brand-new buzz cut while stepping out.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/other/jennifer-garner-ben-affleck-s-middle-child-seraphina-reintroduces-name-as-fin-affleck/ar-BB1lsus6

The story continued with Jennifer Lopez’s anecdotes about her daughter, who apparently also thinks she is more than one thing.  The account becomes confusing when one person is referred to as a plurality.  A similar thing occurred in my car the other day, when two of my son’s friends were riding in the back seat.  One of them referred to another person we all know as “they.”  I immediately wondered who else was being added to the conversation, then I realized and got over my confusion without saying anything.  I wince when I realize a teen has been captured by delusion into the practice of referring to a single person as “they.”

Bits and pieces (6): free my soul

I did not know the song “Drift Away” before the animal known as “show choir” was foisted on me in 2004 at a two-year college.  I don’t remember whether it was the closer or opener, but it became, as far as I remember, the strongest tune that group performed.  It’s catchy, and this song is, in a limited sense, a lasting “bit” from life.

I wasn’t sure why a show choir existed at a college; such groups are more about competition and show than music.  (In interviewing prospective students during my time at Houghton College, from time to time, a student from more southerly climes would register disappointment that we didn’t have marching band competitions in college.)  In fact, my predecessor with this show choir school had already moved away from having this “choir” singing any harmony at all, and she was reportedly going to have them merely lip-sync and dance the next year.  Unbelievable, I know.  I digress.

Anyway, anytime I hear the tune “Drift Away” in Walmart (it would not likely be on my radio), I am transported to that time in Missouri, now two decades ago, and a few “bits and pieces” come to mind:

In the show choir itself, I recall young lady named Jessica, who seemed almost obsessed with looking at herself in the mirror.  Her goal was to be a performer in Branson.  I had never seen a choir room with mirrors like that, and I’ve been averse to them ever since.

James, a young man with energy and a terrific attitude, married Audrey, and they seem to have a fine family now.

Sandy, the recently retired high school choral director who became the adjunct show choir lead, and I had a conversation on the phone in which I registered some concerns about dancing.  She assured me she was “a Christian person” and would uphold family-friendly standards.  I noted she had not said “a Christian.”  Ever since, I have thought the distinction was important.

P.C. Thomas, a Christian colleague, and I were sponsors of a weekly Bible study.  One of my music students attended.  His name was Jeff, and he was a sincere, hard-working guy.  He is a family man and a deacon in his church.  His girlfriend at the time did not maintain her life of Christian morality.  An older student in this Bible study group reacted quite negatively to my questioning his sense of what “anointing” meant then and how it has been co-opted today.  I can see the ire today.  He seemed to be upset to the point that he thought I was blaspheming God.  P.C. and his wife Thankam has us into their home for a delicious Indian meal, and they took us to their church once — a conservative, nondenominational “Bible chapel.”  I recalled the thoughtful hymns and atmosphere there and visited the same place a couple of years ago.

All these are bits and pieces of life:  students in a Bible study group, faculty colleagues with whom I can share faith, and a few students who have stayed with faith or grown in it.

There are some bits and pieces from which I would prefer my soul to be freed.  Some positive bits are seemingly minor, yet they play a role in our spiritual consciousness.

Previous Bits and Pieces blogposts

No longer

The note I’ve reproduced below refers to a bygone era, and the book in which it was inscribed is not likely to be read again.  Still, the note itself is beautiful to me. I don’t want to part with it, so I’ve decided to save just this one page. 

Although not related by blood, the writers (and the givers of the gift-book) feel like first cousins once removed, and they were on my mailing list for the worship digest newsletter I sent out during the 90s.  Because of that and other interactions, they recognized a desire in me; at the time, I was very active in worship leadership and was relatively effective in carrying on a portion of my grandfather’s work and message.  At this point in life, however, that is no longer the case.

Now, I am deeply hurt over the current state of affairs with my extended family, for several have shown no regard (and worse). A decade ago, one of them overtly attempted to reprove me for “associating myself” with my grandfather.  I don’t recall ever making statements to the effect that I was like he was, although I did desire to carry on his influence. 

The image below tells the story of a portion of Granddaddy’s influence. A few years after he was told¹ he was no longer directing the Harding Chorus, his successor (who, incidentally, was a good deal more technically qualified, and who also influenced people for good) honored him with this tribute on the cover of a hymns record. 

[Please ignore typos on the name of Andy T. Ritchie, Jr.  I imagine those occurred during the later transference of these words to a CD liner.]

Today would have been Granddaddy Ritchie’s 115th birthday. 

A little more than forty years ago, he died. 

About thirty years ago, the above note of affirmation was written by family friends. 

Twenty years ago, my leadership opportunities were already drying up, but they still came once in a while.

Flourishing again seems possible only in the next life, as far as I can see.  Survival and maintenance are the order of the day.  Thriving is no longer in view, but man, would a return to thriving be a welcome change, if God wills it!  As for Granddaddy and my mom and dad, they would have loved me, anyway.  As for some others, I’m not so sure.  I depend on the grace of my Eternal Father, whose love never has a “no longer” attached to it.

TT: The Bee and me (censorship, bias, NPR, Google)

I was once censored.  Just like The Babylon Bee. 

Oh, I don’t matter much, and I can actually see the other side, in my case.  I’m not even sure if The Bee matters.  But they got far more notably censored, notably when Twitter was still Twitter.

It wasn’t that a Tweet was removed because it was deemed “hate speech.”

It’s that the account access was suspended without notice, indefinitely, until the Bee’s management removed the post.  In essence Twitter was forcing thought-subjugation.

Based primarily on this 7-minute speech by Seth Dillon, CEO of TBB, I see this problem as more conceptual than procedural.  While an entity such as Twitter has the right to set its own policies, the picture changes when that entity it is essentially a public utility.  It ought to be more broad-minded and free of constraint.  (For example, mobile telephone carriers don’t tell you what you can talk about via their cell towers.)  The editors at TBB were essentially forced to recant an opinion in order to have their access restored.  They did not do that, and I’m glad they didn’t sacrifice principle for dollars.

At least, in my case, something I had displayed was actually removed, and I was given the option to speak about it.  (I didn’t.)  (There would have been no point.)  (So I sometimes put things in my car window now.)  (If they ever ask me to take those off, I won’t.  I’ll just park somewhere else.)

I think The Babylon Bee is pretty delightfully funny a lot of the time.  Sure, it’s politically conservative in spots where I’m not, but it’s got a point, a reason to exist.  Also, they got this right on!  So, today, the topic is free speech, and also the right to tell jokes . . . and then to consider on your own, without threat of the loss of livelihood, whether anything was awry in what was said or joked about.

I think it’s pretty cool that Elon Musk called The Bee and asked what happened, commenting, “Well, maybe I should just buy Twitter.”  The Bee thought it was just an offhanded comment, but it wasn’t . . . and he did.  But we still have censorship problems.  Both of the above-mentioned censorship events were many months ago, but the topic of what one can and should say has come up again, sort of like indigestion, with this Free Press essay of Uri Berliner.  He was an NPR senior editor who was subsequently suspended and then resigned.  Hear Mr. Berliner:

An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America. . . . But for NPR, which purports to consider all things, it’s devastating both for its journalism and its business model.

. . .

[T]his, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity.

I myself began to taper off my NPR listening a few years ago.  It had gotten monotonous to hear the formerly interesting shows.  The last 3-4 years have been particularly bad in my limited, personal perception.  Not surprisingly, Berliner’s act of calling out the censorship and viewpoint guardians within NPR resulted in the end of his career there.  In his resignation message, he wrote, “[I] cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”

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I read last week of pro-Hamas protestors that shut down highways near major airports and occupied a boss’s office at Google, of all places.  Some of them were arrested, and that’s a good thing, in my book.  The problem is, they are probably so ideologically and morally corrupted that they’ll think they were sacrifices for a cause and not just children doing childish things they had no right to do.

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Bias?  In a Tech Giant?

Google is biased.  (Go figure.)  Mutant dystopian AI creations such as dark-skinned Vikings demonstrate the bias toward leftist agendas, as though sane people needed any evidence.  I’m not sure whether that example will prove to be a more or less serious indictment than recent findings that Alphabet/Google has interfered in U.S. elections for at least sixteen years running.  Project Veritas and MRC were key journalistic investigators in that area.  It was asserted, for instance, that the margin by which D. Trump beat H. Clinton would have been significantly greater (2.6MM votes) had the search engine not slanted searches toward favorable Clinton results.  96% of the company’s political donations went to Democrats in a recent year, it was found.    https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/texas-law-scotus-ruling-google-s-alleged-election-interference-3-20-24

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Gender Medicine

The British Cass Report is out, and its author has been denigrated, and some “fact-checkers” failed, and the honest reviewers and critics of the fact-checkers are right, but the biased activists won’t ever find out

A review from Colin Wright:  https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-final-cass-review-and-the-nhs

Fact-checking the fact-checkers:  https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/fact-checking-critics-of-the-cass

Free Press report on some of the fallout:

→ Cass report author can’t take public transport: Earlier this month, British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass published her landmark report on gender care for minors in the UK. Its findings were shocking, if not surprising to anyone who has been following the growth of “gender-affirming care” worldwide. Cass’s report concluded that ideology had trumped medicine in Britain’s healthcare system—and that thousands of young people were given life-changing treatments when there was “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

Yesterday, in an interview with The Times, Cass revealed she has received a torrent of abusive emails for doing her job—along with security advice that she should not travel on public transport. Asked if the abuse had taken a toll on her she said, “No. . . it’s personal, but these people don’t know me.” She said she is more annoyed about those who have misrepresented her findings, including a prominent Labour Member of Parliament who claimed Cass had omitted 100 transgender studies from her report. “I’m much, much more upset and frustrated about all this disinformation than I am about the abuse,” she said. “The thing that makes me seethe is the misinformation.”   – Oliver Wiseman, The Free Press (digest), 4/22/24

Also in the gender medicine area, but representative of a broader concern

Citation cartels represent a growing concern in academic circles, where the integrity of scholarship is compromised by networks of researchers artificially inflating citation counts. These networks, also known as “citation rings,” strategically boost the visibility and perceived impact of specific research domains, as well as the reputations and academic metrics of those involved.

The problem of citation cartels extends beyond individual disciplines and affects global academic rankings and the distribution of research funds. Universities and researchers driven by the pressure to climb international rankings or secure funding are tempted to engage in these unethical practices.

Reality’s Last Stand, Gender Medicine’s Citation Cartel. 4/13/24

Of takers and givers

 O Lord of heav’n and earth and sea,
To thee all praise and glory be!
How shall we show our love to thee,
Who givest all?

. . .

To thee from whom we all derive,
Our life, our gifts, our pow’r to give;
O may we ever with thee live,
Who givest all!

– Christopher Wordsworth, 1863

That song was a bit too poetically high-sounding for most leaders to choose it, but it was sung in my congregation a few times when I was young, and it still inspires.  How can we give to God?  As recipients of all good from God, we are forever in the spiritual position of the requiter.  But how can we really requite?

Indeed, how could anyone undertake to give anything to God?  He is the ultimate Source, the ultimate Giver.   Of course, we cannot in actuality give Him anything He needs, but we will still want to do for Him, to give to Him.

We give thee but thine own,
Whate’er the gift may be;
All that we have is thine alone,
A trust, O Lord, from thee.

– William How, 1858

We humans could and should be giving of ourselves to God and to others.

But we are takers.

And, man, there are lots of dyed-in-the-wool takers around me.  Mostly I think of a few parents, some of whom I’ve never met.  They seem just to take, take, take all the time . . . to reap the benefits of others who give, give, give to the idle takers’ children.  Ideally, sharing can occur.  Sharing of rides, reciprocation of gifts, meals out, and more.  But some parents never seem to realize what’s happening with their own children:  how much is given to their children, how much they are missing out on!  And how much the children too, are in a position of taking!  In this scenario we are talking about humans taking from other humans, and the humans are actually in a position to be able to give in return, to give something needed.

I try to be a giver, and I enjoy being able to be generous here and here, but sometimes it just feels that I’m being taken advantage of.  When a friend of my son needs something bought before her game, or needs a ride, I’m happy to provide if I can, but then I find out a parent is just sitting at home doing nothing, and I start to feel that parent is a taker.  And I hope the daughter learns to be a giver instead.  I want to be helpful, and I want to be an adult that can be depended on, but I don’t want to enable a behavior pattern that will create irresponsibility in the next generation.

A third song of which I’m reminded is from yet a third middle-19C poet.  (This concentration in another era leads me to wonder whether anyone thinks much about giving anymore.)  In my experience, this song was often used as a contribution-motivation song, and I rather wish this song were used more overtly as a catalyst for deeper thought about a deeper kind of giving.

 I gave My life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
That thou mightst ransomed be,
And quickened from the dead;
I gave, I gave My life for thee,
What hast thou done for Me?
I gave, I gave My life for thee,
What hast thou done for Me?

-Frances Havergal, ca. 1860

Truly, what have we done?  What have we given?  The prophet said all our righteous deeds, even, amount to nothing but “filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)  The ultimate giver is God.  Both before Jesus lived and became Christ, and through Him now, we find the Example of giving.  We take from Him; we receive from Him.  And all we have to give is nothing  . . . and everything.

Whatever, Lord, we lend to thee,
Repaid a thousand fold shall be;
Then gladly will we give to thee,
Who givest all!

– Christopher Wordsworth, 1863

Reflections of a similar kind:

Of wine and whine

Reflecting on it: asking, and being asked

A friend used to seem coy about things from time to time.  Once, I asked why she hadn’t mentioned something before.

“You didn’t ask,” she smiled.

I met her brother once, and he gave me a similar “you didn’t ask” about a separate matter.  This keeping-things-to-yourself-until-someone-asks thing was almost a family trait!  Although it seemed a little unusual at the time, it is more appealing now, and it strikes me as often wise.  Sometimes I wish I could say less to other people, just being content in my own thoughts.  There are many other times, however, when simply having an information interchange beforehand would shed light, head off a problem, or generally make life easier.  I would often rather the person ask, so that when a problem occurs, I don’t have to say, either under my breath or out loud, “You didn’t ask.”

For instance, it baffles me why someone would unilaterally change a schedule that impacted my work and space without even mentioning it, much less asking whether it would work out on my end.  This was not collegial behavior, and it affected my state of mind and the ability to do my job, too.  (Yes, I know I’m too feelings-aware.)  Had I been asked later why I didn’t pipe up, I could say, “You didn’t ask,” I suppose.  At the point at which the problem surfaced, there was actually nothing to be gained by discussing it:  other, more far-reaching factors were in play.  Still, the other side should have asked first.

“Why didn’t you tell me how you felt or what the impact would be?”

“You didn’t ask!  (Also, it wouldn’t have changed anything if I had spoken up, and you and I both know it.)”

So many situations could be improved if at least one party would genuinely ask the other party what it is thinking, or why it did this or that.  At least some dialogue could occur.

The responsibility can fall on either side, or both.  On the one hand, a person making a change should consider ramifications.  Administrators and managers should help to head off problems.  On the other hand, when a change is in the works and one party is not asked, the ignored party could be so bold as to offer its side of things, even uninvited.

This is not me. But I surely do feel like that a lot.

In some situations, asking a question of someone can be a trap.  If I am on the receiving end of a question that feels uncomfortable, I might avoid the question.  If a questioner has a conclusion in mind already, he should take care to examine his own mind and heart before asking a question of someone else.

“Why did you ask if you already thought you knew?”

I suppose the difference lies in the nature of the scenario.  If it’s a work relationship and the question is relatively surface-level, just ask me.  (I’ll try to do the same.)  I would rather you ask me than assume my preference, thoughts, feelings.  Whether you ask or not, if you assume something, or act unilaterally, I’ll be left somehow muttering, “You didn’t (really) ask.”

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There is another type of situation that pertains to asking and being asked.  This concerns professional, collegial, relationships.  Here, I think to myself,

“You didn’t even ask.  Why haven’t you asked?”

Long ago, when in my first teaching job, four colleagues planned and produced a fun concert, with guitars and bass and drums and redneck humor.  I was the new music teacher,  had some connections with one of them,  and was trying to develop friendships with the others.  I was negotiating my new roles and felt excluded by these four.  I went to one of them to express my sense of hurt, and he responded with some understanding, but also with a question along the lines of “Well, why would you assume we should have asked you to join in?”  Again, I was making my way in this new school as a very young teacher, and I still wonder why they didn’t ask me at least to play a supporting role, maybe on piano or another guitar.  It was my area, after all, and being included could have helped me secure an approachable reputation more quickly.  But they did not owe me that, and they knew each other better than they knew me.  They just didn’t ask, and they didn’t have to.  It was my insecurities and youth that made that situation difficult for me.

Today, my local music friends are important to me.  It’s not a huge group, but it’s fairly solid and a growing number, I’m glad for that.  Naturally, I can share more with some of them than others, and I hope I’m the kind of person who invites their words, too.  One in particular has asked for musical favors quite a few times, and I’ve almost always been able to oblige, and glad to do it.  She makes it easy to participate and support, and she has been doing musical service for one of my groups, too.  It’s a nice music-friend relationship.  She asks, and I say, “Sure, can do.”  I ask, and she says the same.  After the first time or two, if she had not asked again, I would have thought something was up.

It’s not the same with another music friend.  There seems to be an inexplicable distance.  By all rights, we should be real friends.  I have made overtures on two or three occasions, and those have not resulted in anything, really.  I am left to presume why this person has not made occasions to spend time together, and why he has not asked for more from me.  (Presuming is usually a bad idea, but my instincts tend to serve me well, so I allow myself to presume, unchecked, at times.)  I am right here, and I have some expertise that would help.  I am right here, and this person has yet to ask me for anything.  I am right here, floundering, and this person could actually help me by asking for my help, and we would all be better off!  If you would just ask!  Or is there some reason you are not asking?  (I shan’t speculate out loud.)

Now for a concluding, shamefully out-of-context reference to Romans 12:3, NET:

For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith.

(I think I have a realistic estimation of my value and am not thinking of myself more highly than I ought, but I could be wrong.)

 

TT: Deeply upset by it (and guardedly encouraged by something else)

Below I have reproduced a Facebook interchange.  This began when an acquaintance reposted this from a meme-producing “reverend”:  “God celebrates who you are.  If your church doesn’t, get a new church.”

While I think there are a lot of reasons to “get a new church,” I found the message there to be not-so-subtly off its mark.  Apparently, I have not learned to keep my mouth shut.  A brief interchange about that occurred over a period of a couple of days.  I first tried to comment deeply, if briefly.  Then I got myself in too deep, I think.

Me:  God knows who we are, even if we sometimes don’t.

Interlocutor:  Ain’t it the truth!

Me:  Yes, and anyone who coddles deluded senses of “identity” is not being truly compassionate in the long-term sense.  Being compassionate is doing all we can to help people accept who they are.

Based on a few things in the past, I feel like this comment might need to be deleted by one of us . . . and I absolutely hate feeling like that. Maybe I’m wrong.

Interlocutor:  Oooo… you were SO close. Actually it’s: “Being compassionate is doing all we can to accept people for who they are.” There… fixed it. Because the way you had it is the opposite of compassion, and in fact results in daily suicides.

And then I deleted all previous comments, for there was no point.  (And I was too deeply upset.)  In addition, it struck me that the aforementioned acquaintance/interlocutor turned a horrific reality into a light-hearted game with the interjection “Oooo.”

On the topic of “identity,” this acquaintance appears to be reading biased, erroneous data.  And I am deeply saddened over that.  I believe he is often quite misguided, possibly because of wishing to distance himself from certain aspects of his past.  Here, he is wrong with respect to the allegation and ramifications of increased suicide rates.  Even given a few terrible suicides (and surely various self-harm incidents) related to gender dysphoria, no one can say they wouldn’t have happened if gender transition actually had been started.  The way some states are driving wedges between parents on the one hand and children and schools on the other is of deep concern.  When school officials offer to hide things from parents, how can parents, who know and love their own children far more thoroughly than a guidance counselor who is influenced by a corrupt ideology, save the day?  Put another way:  certain educational and medical organizations are quite likely themselves increasing the risk of self-harm.

Furthermore, neither can anyone say whether suicides among transitioners and detransitioners will be less frequent or more frequent down the road, i.e., months or years later.  Studies can be so very biased.  And mental and emotional illnesses will continue, regardless of external, sometimes medically aided, fallacies.

Hear Dr. Heather Heying again:

Parents are told that if they don’t affirm or comply, their child may die—from suicide. . . .  The message becomes personal and direct:  You could have saved your child, but you didn’t.  If the worst happens, how will you live with yourself?

See this for what it is:  an attempt to scare you.  They would convince you to embrace the very thing that is truly dangerous for your child, and convince you, too, that if you don’t, anything that happens to your child in the future is your fault.  Heather Heying, “Me, She, He, They,” 3/7/23  https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/meshehethey

A parent wrote this in reflection on his own teen daughter’s dysphoria:

“A couple years ago I asked what she thought about Jazz’s one-hundred-pound weight gain.  Just an ordinary binge-eating disorder, she replied, unrelated to anything, least of all puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or multiple botched surgeries.

 

The delusions and abandonment of logic can run so deep.  The influences on that young lady had convinced her to point the finger at the wrong things . . . and all the while, her own underlying, root issues were going unattended to.

I’m deeply upset when anyone cannot see, or refuses to see, reality related to teen mental and emotional health.  The acquaintance referred to at the top lives in California, and, as with many others, the state’s cultural climate¹ appears to have influenced him to see things wrongly, sending him down poor pathways.  When people as divergent as evolutionary biologist atheists, most “conservative” and many “free-press” journalists, world-class psychologists such as Jordan Peterson, whistle-blowing lesbian healthcare workers such as Jamie Reed, best-selling feminist authors such as J.K. Rowling. and right-thinking Christians agree on something (and they do), then the thing on which they agree appears unassailable.  I admit that my creation of a virtual posse there is not very logical, but it does add to my certainty.

On the upside, a meeting last Friday (with people who work with local teenagers) seemed to indicate that they are at least aware of the seriousness of some mental/emotional health issues with teenagers, if not the origin and ramifications.  Social media contagion has unleashed an unimaginably destructive influence on a large set of young people.

I lament all who are deluded into thinking that one can be “born into the wrong body.”  That is not a thing my God would allow.  (This is not to disavow anomalies, nor do I intend to downplay the difficulty that will occur in the face of a biological anomaly.)

Believe God

Or believe biological science

Or believe both! 

Science, God, logic, and conscience are all in harmony.  Sex is binary, and “gender identity” wars are obscuring the terrible things going on in teens’ minds and hearts—particularly with girls.  Allowing girls to express personality through (socially acceptable, reasonable) clothing, hair style, etc., is fine.  What’s not okay is to allow precious souls them to harm themselves permanently.  People need the right kind of help.  Anything but ushering them into irreversible medical “therapies” that mutilate healthy body parts or are designed to defer or stop puberty (which is a design of God).  Anyone’s normal conscience will keep him from doing harm to someone for any reason, much less if that harm is based on a delusional self-diagnosis.

I believe 99% of the current rush to gender transition and acceptance of “trans” identities is attributable to three particular factors—mental disorders, emotional disorders, and social-media-induced contagion.  If it’s just a measly 20%, which is inconceivable to me, the professional and public responses to trans matters ought to be a lot different from what we’re seeing.

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Finally, something I’m NOT deeply upset by

In order to get myself off that topic, I will share an unprecedented (that is, in this weekly Tuesday Topics series) item:  a non-discouraging visit to a new church.  I visited a church in town where I’ve never darkened the doors before.  The preacher spoke of a topic on which I have a relatively developed opinion, and he assumed different things, and he was still easy to listen to.  The congregational ethos was fine, and I saw a couple of people I know from other areas of life, and that was pleasant.  Overall, I felt rather positive about the visit.  Today I had a text reach from an acquaintance who is a member there.  Could it be that this church could be a temporary home until I can be extracted from here?

“Church” is of course also a topic, and it should definitely be a Tuesday one, not to mention all the other days of the week!

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¹ It’s not just California, although I rather feel that the West Coast is a particularly negative factor in morality, unless one just stays home and enjoys the topography and the climate out there.  Living in Kansas has affected me in some ways, too.  Living in other places—say, New Jersey, Texas, Minnesota, a state not to be named at this moment in time—all these could affect a person before he knows it, and more deeply than he knows it.  It’s not just states, of course.  Living in a college campus bubble can be quite the factor, too.  We ought to realize these things about ourselves.

Pondering it: community processes and communal feeling

A few days ago, I attended a large-group meeting out of a sense of obligation.  The meeting didn’t turn out to be worthwhile, and I should have known that on the front side, but I was compliant.  I sort of wish I had just skipped the meeting . . . but then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to explore this experience from both personal and pragmatic standpoints.

I immediately assessed the facilitator, apparently a new department head, as inviting and helpful.  However, the sense of the group dynamic—the “community” that he and others assumed—did not square with my sense of it all.  As a result, I left feeling worse about my place in the world.  Put differently:  I was an outsider, in that I didn’t know the organizational scenario or any of the other people in the room.  And my experience of the larger community has been increasingly one of distance,¹ not of shared communal warmth and support.  (This feeling is natural because of traditional and doctrinal differences.)

In addition, the meeting seemed largely to waste about two dozen people’s time.  It seemed clear that a few needed to air some things, sharing their department’s limitations and concerns, and that kind of thing can be well justified . . . but not at the expense of calling in many other people who have little to do with those concerns and nothing to offer, draining their patience and wasting their time.  To be fair, I did not see many signs that my concern with time-wasting was shared.  Others seemed just fine, although a few were occupying themselves with laptops and not paying too much attention.

There are connections to how I feel about most church gatherings.  Let me now extend the thinking on this meeting experience to “church.”

Leadership 
While a leader such as the one here might have wonderful intentions, a nice personality, and effective, diplomatic mannerisms and oral delivery, leadership also involves understanding the situation from others’ points of view.  If my conducting of a piece of music does not incorporate issues in the second violin section, the difficulties in horn parts, or the necessity of switching from Bb clarinet to A clarinet, for instance, then I might be assuming too much and will end up compromising good leadership.  Furthermore, if I am unaware of the personal backgrounds and capacities of the people I am leading, both I and the meeting will be less effective.  The leader of a large meeting can be a great speaker and facilitator, but he ought also to understand something of the lives of the others.  He might think they need to be there, and he might assume they on on board, but their life priorities and actual needs might indicate otherwise.

Similarly, a preacher or worship leader might also have some wonderful personal qualities, pleasing manner, and a good speaking voice, but all leaders should seek to understand those they are leading.  The larger the group, the less likely it is that a leader can grasp things like this on an individual scale.  This is one reason I tend to prefer smaller groups.  Then again, when the group can fit in the living room, there can be less excuse for uninformed leadership.

Differing experience
For an entire year, about 30 years ago, I led twelve Third Sunday evening assemblies at my church.  This was all about “one another.”  Owing to certain feelings in my life, I took a sort of sabbatical from worship leadership in the Sunday morning assembly, moving instead into horizontal focus for a time.

For the Third Sunday evening each month, I was the planner and principal leader, facilitating the selection of songs and other material, inviting leaders, and conducting live interviews with people I selected.  The whole raison d’etre for this “one another” effort was my sense of the need for deeper focus on people, alongside focus on God.  I believe it was a good thing, and my intentions were certainly good, albeit born of personal pain.  I don’t recall knowing of any disgruntlement, but it could well be that the elders of the church received complaints.

You see, I could have been unwittingly ignoring other people’s experience of the community.  If I came off as “warm and cozy” in my touting of biblical one-another ideals, and if someone else felt the debilitating distance I now feel, the whole thing would have been counterproductive for that person.  In other words, if I’m singing and talking about loving people, and personably interviewing a personable person, allowing everyone getting to know him or her better, it could make a hurting person feel even worse . . . because no one knows her, and no one seems to want to expend the effort to understand her.  The emotional background of individuals, combined with varying senses of “community,” can have a great deal to do with receptivity.  If “communal feeling” is forced on you when you don’t feel connected, it’s unlikely that you will feel very communal about it all, no matter how conceptually excellent the words of the songs about loving people might be.

Similarly, when I hear people dialoging and nicely deferring to one another, apologizing and clarifying and seeking everyone’s good (just as I did at this campus meeting), it made me feel worse, because those things simply have not occurred in my personal experience.  I felt even more excluded, not included.  I hurt even more.

Wasted time
A person I used to know once said, while raising three young boys, “Time is gold.”  I have felt that throughout most of my life.  Although my current “busy” level is not what it once was, I feel pressures related to time that will probably never evaporate.  Rather than ramble about time and responsibilities, I’ll suggest this:  if the feeling of community were rich and genuine, I don’t think I’d have nearly the problem with “wasting” time with the group.

My experience with pretty much all meetings is that they waste a lot of time and often turn out not to be as communal as they purport to be.  Those leading meetings, whether church gatherings or office meetings, should consider well the processes and people involved, so that the desired goals are met without making people feel worse through the effort.

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’ Distance because of questionable judgments (mostly other people’s), differing rationales, and mistreatment of programs and people