A Window Into Our Kids' Driving Future

On our way to visiting my in-laws this past weekend, we stopped by at a mall somewhere in Connecticut, where we stopped for a quick bite to eat at Johnny Rockets and let the kids stretch their legs a little in a little indoor play area that they had in the mall. It was, after all, a bit of a drive, and we wanted to kids to have a chance to run around a little before hopping back into the car.

The play area was a five by ten yard enclosure which had glossy, yet sturdy solid plastic slides shaped as mushrooms, upright walls with objects which could be spun with small hands, and a couple of cartoony animals, boats and cars which could be climbed on and into. It was sort of like a Seussical wonderland made out of polymers.

What was interesting was seeing Daniel and Sophia happily sitting in two adjacent cars pretending to drive as they spun their respective plastic steering wheels around and round. Sarah and I leaned against each other and just sort of looked at them, wondering if this was some sort of strange window of what we might see sixteen or even twenty-five years from now, watching our two kids pull into our driveway. Who knows? Maybe they'll, as my brother and I do, pull into their parents' driveway with their kids to visit the grandparents.

I just hope they drive better than we did as teenagers.

A Surprising Conversation at Work

I had a brutal week at work last week, which included an overnight stay of business travel and jam-packed days filled with meetings, conflict resolutions, escalations, and downpours of incoming Blackberry messages and e-mails coming from every which way. There were conversations and negotiations within colleagues in my company as well as with those outside my company. I hardly had time to think - only time to react.

On Friday, I was in my office when one of the administrative assistants in my group (though not my admin) stopped by my office and asked me if she could ask me a question "about an assignment" she had. Assuming that she wanted to get direction about how to best organize a summary for which she was asked to create a PowerPoint or information about a strategic initiative I was involved in, I told her that I'd be happy to answer any question she had.

So still standing at the doorway of my office, she asked, "What are the consequences of living outside the Word of God?"

To give a little context, I had found out a few months ago that this admin was a Christian by noticing some faith and inspiration-themed paraphernalia in her cubicle, so I introduced myself as a Christian and would dialogue with her on occasion about our faith. When I would drop by her cubicle in order to schedule a meeting with a colleague that she supported, I'd share about something that challenged me about a recent sermon. It wasn't contrived - just a great way to share something the Lord put on my heart that hopefully was mutually edifying.

So I invited her to take a seat in my office, and we talked a little about her question. We talked a little about Romans, and how while there is grace when the Spirit convicts us appropriately of sin, there's a danger that our constant sin may risk almost a numbness and blindness that we are dangerously no longer affected by it, even though it destroys us. So even as those who are free in Christ, we enslave and ensnare ourselves.

I guess it's clear that now that her "assignment" was something from her church fellowship or Bible study. I'm guessing this wasn't something given to her by our group Vice President. It obviously wasn't like the rest of the conversations I had a work that week. It was probably the most enjoyable.

Apparently, You're an Idiot For Not Buying More Expensive Coffee

Starbucks Coffee, who has watched many customers flock towards cheaper coffee which is almost as good if not as good, has gone on the offensive. In new ads, Starbucks takes thinly veiled shot at up-and-coming coffee seller McDonald's with ads with clever taglines such as: "Beware of a cheaper cup of coffee... it comes with a price," and that "compromise leaves a really bad aftertaste." The marketing campaign will "focus more on value and the quality of the Starbucks experience."

Granted, I'm not a devout Starbucks drinker even though I like their caramel macchiatos, but this completely reeks of an ad campaign that insults the customer's intelligence. It's the flip-side of my concerns around the Microsoft "our product might stink, but how about that bang for the buck?" ad campaign I had referenced in an earlier post.

So the point, Mr. Schultz, is that I should be willing to pay 75 to 150% more on a comparable cup of coffee because it's much better to order my coffee from someone with a green apron who hands it off to someone who will stick it on a round side table while calling out my order as opposed to getting it from a red-uniformed McDonald's cashier? Or maybe I'm paying for the leather seat and rug within the Starbucks that I never get to use because it's jammed packed, or the absence of kids which would plague a McDonald's.

I'm not quite understanding the value proposition.

Dinner and a Show

Last Saturday, my family and I decided to treat ourselves and go out to the new neighborhood restaurant, a Japanese hibachi-style steakhouse. The restaurant, Sapparo, stands where the previously maligned Mongolian barbecue J.P. Lee once stood. I didn't think J.P. Lee was as awful as Sarah did, but her culinary experience was so horrible that she never gave it another chance. 

That's the tricky thing about Mongolian barbecues: since it's essentially "make your own concoction", the establishment is at the whim of your own ability to mix ingredients and sauces to create a good flavor. Since most of us aren't from culinary schools, we tend to over saturate our food with sauces with terrible results ("hmm... I like Thai peanut sauce, Vietnamese fish sauce, teriyaki sauce and sweet and sour sauce. It seems to reason that if I mix 'em all together, it'll be delicious!"). Add to that our inability to balance our choices of meats and starches, so we either feel heavy or generally unsatisfied. Of course, we place the blame on the restaurant, and its name is mud.

In any case, Sapporo was a nice change of pace, especially for the kids. I've been to a Japanese steakhouse once, about eight years ago during a consulting gig near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. For Sarah and the kids, it was a treat to see our hibachi chef do his little cooking utensil juggling schtick and oil-fueled fireball show, to which Sarah kept telling Daniel, "Don't try that at home, okay?" The food was actually pretty decent, but at least in my book, it's clear that you're really paying a premium for the chef's little show, which is great especially when you have kids who get bored easily.

Next stop, Medieval Times! 

Not Indoctrinated, Just Socially Needy

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, columnist Charles Blow pens a note that might be intended to serve as a defense of religion but actually unintentionally serves as fodder for those who question the very legitimacy of faith.

The column starts by debunking the myth that those who are "religious" are simply by-products of parents of parents who brainwashed them dogma, pointing to large amounts of those who were raised as non-religious who eventually became people of faith in a recent Pew study.

Where Mr. Blow possibly unintentionally drops the ball is his premise and implication that "while science, logic and reason are on the side of the nonreligious" (his words), those who come to faith do so because they feel a void in their lives around questions as weighty as "But when is the choir going to sing? And when is the picnic? And is my child going to get a part in the holiday play?"

Ugh. This is basically a restating of a major atheist and humanist argument, that is, faith is completely irrational and illogical, and religion is simply a creation of man largely build upon human neediness for things such as group singing, social companionship and a chance to have your kids engage in community activities. Yup, that's the ticket. Your religion is a complete fabricated fraud, but live in that fantasyworld because you can satisfy your emotional neediness. It's a salute to Karl Marx's observation that religion is the opiate for the masses.

So if Mr. Blow is a Christian, I think he seriously needs to be a little more "prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15) That is unless he's essentially the type of person he alludes to above - a closet humanist who keeps a religous affiliation for the sake of picnics, choirs and holiday plays. If our arguments presume a framework where "logic and reason" and "love and compassion" of religion are somehow mutually exclusive and the case for faith essentially boils down to people's emotional neediness, I'd anticipate that most of our New York metropolitan post-modern contemporaries will be unimpressed.

Variable Emphases on Morality

A friend of mine recently pointed out an AlterNet article on the work of progressive Jonathan Haidt, who has outlined, through a construct that I'll share in brief later, different views that conservatives and liberals have around morality, and why liberals should be able to understand, if not appreciate, their counterparts' point of view in hope to work constructively and collaboratively going forward.

Haidt basically argues that the morality is multi-faceted, and that despite traditional liberal arguments that they're either "more" moral or "just as" moral as backward-thinking conservatives, both groups simply have different emphases on the spectrum.

Dan McAdams, a fellow acacdemic, summed up Haidt's five foundational moral impulses as such:

• Harm/care. It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering.

• Fairness/reciprocity. Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.

• In-group loyalty. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad.

• Authority/respect. People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for human life.

• Purity/sanctity. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad. 

The research that Haidt has done has shown liberal emphasis on the first two and conservative emphasis on the last three. None of this is surprising, and he makes the point that it's not as if either group completely ignores the areas of non-emphasis, pre-empting challenges from either group from protesting, "Hey, it's not as if I don't care about XXX." The construct is a means for a liberal to tell other liberals (and conservatives for that matter), how to get their heads around understanding opposing moral viewpoints without being condescending.

Looking at the user comments, which are mostly left-leaning given the audience of the site, it's sad to see that many are stuck in the "I will not give moral equivalence or similarity to a hateful conservative agenda that is based upon people's ignorance and religious mythology" mode. There are glimmers of hope, such as one reader who refused to join in the legions of others dismissing an article which had the audacity to humanize conservatives instead of stating that "liberals are good and conservatives are evil":

One poster brought up that poelemic "America, Love it or Leave it" and said that conservatives should have done that. Have we as liberals really come that far? That same poster decried that conservatives saw that they didn't like America and worked to change it. Isn't that a value that we as liberals espouse? When I started working for social change I heard almost continuously the refrain "If you don't like it here go to Russia where you belong!". I always thought, "But don't you get it? That's why I love it here, because I CAN do this!". Have we really come full circle and it's now time for us to kick the other guy out? 

They say power corrupts and if that is what is happening keep me out of power forever! I may never agree with what someone who dissents says (like the teabaggers--fake though it was the people involved did not think so!) but I will defend to the death their right to do so! 

I have gotten myself off topic here (as I am famous for!). To get back on point.......we need to understand each other--if we do not we will be forever divided--if we are forever divided we will cease to be the rulers of our own destiny. I, for one, do not want that to be the kind of world my children inherit. I hope I am not alone.........

As a fallen people, we all have our blind spots. Even Christians have, in practice, imperfect and imbalanced moral constructs which, despite our best efforts, lean somewhere between Jim Wallis of Sojourners and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. None of us completely gets it, but I look at the God of redemption in the Bible - I look at Jesus' ministry here on earth, and I see the manifestation of perfection in each of those moral impulses.  For those who are followers of Christ, I would hope that a truly open and non-politically skewed pursuit of him would lead to the revelation and addressing of some of our own blind spots.

Not Quite Paul on the Road to Damascus

A few days ago, a couple of friends of mine invited me a Christian Union benefit reception in New York City. Christian Union, for those of you who don't know, is a ministry dedicated to advancing the Christian faith in Ivy League schools. Whether the focus of the ministry is elitist or not is something I'm not going to get into at the moment.

I did find interesting, and I told this to my friends, was one of the featured guests in this benefit reception:

Keith Elias, Princeton '94

Former NFL Player

When I was at Penn, Keith Elias distinguished himself as public enemy #1. He was an excellent running back, outstanding by Ivy League standards, and his brash personality and incendiary comments poured gasoline on the rivalry. In an article in Sports Illustrated, Elias did his best Jeremy Shockey / Brian Bosworth imitation, shaving his hair in a mohawk and matter-of-factly took verbal shots at Penn, saying it was a shame that Penn could admit players who could not be admitted to Princeton. 

The article outlines the response from Penn students:

Reaction was not subtle. The sports editor of Penn's The Daily Pennsylvania called Elias "a joke" and "a loudmouth" in print. The Penn marching band prepared a halftime routine about telephone Princeton admissions: "Press 1 if your father went to Princeton. Press 2 if your grandfather went to Princeton. Press 3 if you were a bad child actress. Press 4 if you're a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. (Beep.) You're admitted." 

On campus, the vitriol was palpable. We absolutely hated this guy. Chants of "Elias [stinks]!" were plentiful, and believe me, there were far worse things that were said.  Following the loss to Penn and at a basketball game at Princeton's Jadwin Gym, Penn fans in the balcony started heckling Elias, to which he responded by charging in a rage towards the balcony, only to be restrained by the arena guards. 

And the theory that it was just the bitter school rivals that disliked him can be put to bed. Eight years ago I had asked two Princeton friends, one from my church and one from business school who had actually played on the football team, what they had thought of Keith Elias, who was at Princeton when they were. The friend from church said he was "kind of a arrogant jerk", and my friend from business school used a figure of speech that would be inappropriate to write on a family-friendly blog.

I did hear that Keith became a Christian many years ago, during his time in the NFL. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, but I'm thrilled that Keith is a brother.