kc bob

Masks

“We understand how dangerous a mask can be.
We all become what we pretend to be.” -Patrick Rothfuss

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” -Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” ―Andre Berthiaume

Life is a Roller-Coaster

Life is a roller-coaster, not a monorail. -Dr John Walton, Wheaton College

Heard Dr Walton say this yesterday (he is the Old Testament teacher in the Bible in 90 Days study) when he was commenting on the book of Ecclesiastes. I loved the way that he spoke of Solomon giving up the quest to finding meaning in life and simply enjoying the simple things that God sets before us. I felt that it set me free a bit of my desire to find some sort of mystical meaning in sufferings and hardships. Hearing him say that the roller-coaster life is normal affirmed something deep inside of me. I think that it gave me a permission of sorts to be content with the physical difficulties that challenge me each day. Not that I will now like roller-coasters. ツ

Christian Stereotype Sanity Check

Relevant Magazine speaks to the issue of how Christians, and Christianity, are often marginalized by stereotypical views. Here are a few of those stereotypes with explanations from the article:

Christians are Republican: A 2008 Barna study found 51 percent of Republicans have spiritual beliefs that qualify them as “born again” Christians. Significantly fewer Democrats hold the same beliefs, but it’s still a pretty high amount: 38 percent.
Christianity is Mainly an American Thing: There are 2.18 billion Christians around the world. And only 11.3 percent of those live in the U.S.
Christians Think They’re Better Than Everyone Else / Are Hypocritical: According to a Barna Group study, 51 percent showed Pharisaical attitudes and actions while just 14 percent showed Christ-like attitudes and actions. 21 percent showed Christ-like attitudes but Pharisaical actions.
Christians Don’t Care About Science: A 2009 Pew survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found 33 percent of scientists believe in God and 18 percent more don’t believe in God but do believe in some sort of "higher power."
Christians Have The Same Divorce Rates As Those Outside the Church: A study in the Journal of Religion and Society found that Christians have a slightly lower divorce rate (37 percent) than non-Christians (44 percent). The rates varied between traditions and were significantly lower among those with frequent church attendance.

What I glean from the piece (read it in full here) is that many of us (I know this is true for me) have embraced these stereotypes and continue to proliferate them. Perhaps this article might help to educate and inform us a bit?

Healthcare Mulligan

Sometimes we just need a do over!

The Idol of Certainty

"If I am anxiously striving to make myself feel certain that all my beliefs are true, fearfully avoiding anything that might cause me to doubt them, and fearfully suppressing any doubts that I may already be experiencing, doesn’t this indicate that I am not getting my core need for love, worth, and security from the God who is revealed on the cross? " -Greg Boyd, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty

I can so relate to having a quest for certainty and trying to eliminate every doubt. Then I read about how Mother Teresa had, and lived with, doubts in her later years. I agree with Cal Thomas when he says:

"It is by looking beyond our circumstances in a fallen world and beyond doubt that we find hope and faith. Perhaps Mother Teresa's doubt lasted longer than most, but doubt is not the same as disbelief and in her actions as well as her words, she exhibited more faith than any doubter -- or non-doubter -- I have known."

Reversing Nerve Damage

If successful, a new remyelinating antibody called rHIgM22 may help reverse nerve damage caused by MS. In a collaboration between the Mayo Clinic and Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., a “first-in-human” trial of the drug rHIgM22 to repair nerve damage caused by multiple sclerosis (MS) is currently recruiting volunteers.

Earlier animal studies of rHIgM22 showed improvements in motor activity, meaning a possible reversal of disability. If successful, this could be a groundbreaking achievement, particularly for those with progressive forms of MS, for which there are no treatments currently available. Read more about this drug trial here.

Conviction | ★★★★★★★★

This 2010 movie was a very pleasant surprise. It reminded me of "The Wronged Man", a 2010 made-for-tv movie about a woman who fought for 15 years to obtain the release of an innocent man. Both movies are based on true stories about women who worked with "The Innocence Project" to pursue justice for imprisoned men.

Where I think the movies part is in the stories of the two women. In this movie the love, the drive and the motivation of Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) takes your breath away. After her brother is convicted of murder she never stops believing that he is innocent - even when he asks her to give up she never does. This amazing high school drop out gets her GED, undergraduate degree and a law degree all to pursue justice for her brother. Her unstoppable love for her brother is simply inspirational.

I really liked the movie and, on a scale of ten, give it ★★★★★★★★.

Catch my other mini-reviews by selecting the Movies link in the menu bar above.

On being fully alive ...

“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Howard Thurman

The quote above and the one to the right remind me how older folks often tell young people to find something that you love doing and find a way to make money doing it. I think that it is so much easier to say than to do. Even so, I found such a job in 1976 when I became a computer programmer. Something inside of me just clicked when I was designing software. It was not all that much different than what I think an artist must feel when they are painting or sculpting. It reminds me that so much of our spiritual life is not found in religious settings but in the places where we are filled with the joy of doing the things that behold God and cause our inner beings to come alive. Can you relate?

Star Wars Mogul

Which Star Wars Actor Became Enormously Wealthy Off The Film’s Royalties?

        •  Harrison Ford

        •  Alec Guinness

        •  James Earl Jones

        •  Mark Hamill

The answer is supplied to us by the How-to-Geek here. Let me know how you did.

Eat Bacon :: Live Longer

According to an article titled "Study shows eating Bacon will make you live Longer" ...

Science has enriched the lives of bacon-lovers everywhere. A study conducted by researchers at ETH Zurich has concluded that the high levels of Vitamin B3 (known as niacin) in this meat could help you live longer.

And they told me bacon would kill me! Lets all give "science" a standing ovation!

The Blogger formerly known as Kansas Bob

One of my blogging friends posted recently about how she wanted to use a Blogspot name that is not available because it was used many years ago and is now defunct. It reminded me of how many of my friends gave me the business when I moved to Kansas City, Missouri in June, 2010. They said that I could no longer be known as Kansas Bob simply because I no longer lived in Kansas.

Over the years I have vacillated wondering if I should bother changing my blog and my blogging identity - and should I even attempt to go with a different URL? In recent days I have made a few changes. I now appear on your comment feed as "KC Bob" and my blog banner says "Kansas City Bob". Not sure that I will ever change the URL though as kcbob.com is already taken. ツ

Expectations get us in trouble ...

Mark and Angel offer an interesting perspective in the post titled "7 Things You Should Stop Expecting from Others". Here are the first three expectations their list ...

Agreement: I so agree that we should not expect this from people. In their words "You have to dare to be yourself, and follow you own intuition, however frightening or strange that may feel or prove to be."
Respect: "True strength is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. It’s about having faith and trust in who you are, and a willingness to act upon it." That is spot on and is deserving of others' respect.
Being Liked: Man can I ever relate to this. I cannot even think of one time that pleasing others has ever done anything for me. I so agree that "In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, the toughest battle you’ll ever have to fight is the battle to be yourself."

The fourth item on their list is the one that has gotten me in a lot of trouble. Here is how they frame it: "Stop expecting them to fit your idea of who they are." I think that this has troubled me most in religious settings where I expect people to act in accordance with my understanding of the words pastor or even Christian. And in other settings even words like friend or father can create unrealistic expectations. Sad how these expectations cause us to judge each other.

Australians, Guns and the right to Bear Arms

My Australian blogging friend Lynne had this to offer on Facebook when I asked folks if they have ever fired a gun ...

It was never much of a gun culture to start with. Sure there are gun clubs, and farmers have rifles for killing sick animals or things like rabbits (which are not native, for some unimaginable reason some early settlers thought it was good idea to bring them in, and they've been a nuisance ever since) but most of us city-dwellers (over 80% of the Australian population) have never touched a gun in our lives. After the Port Arthur shooting the government instituted a massive buy back, and people voluntarily handed their guns in. You are only allowed a gun licence (and can't buy one without it) if you fit certain tightly defined criteria -- e.g. farmer, member of a gun club etc (and gun club members have to leave their guns locked up at the club). We don't feel vulnerable -- most criminals don't have guns either, because there were never that many guns around to begin with.
...
To put it in some sort of cultural perspective, we don't have a right to bear arms written into our constitution (because no one has ever thought we needed it) and we have never had a war fought on Australian soil. And since the gun buy-back, there have been no more mass shootings,and that was more than 25 years ago. Most of us are completely mystified by American gun laws, but I'm sure it comes down to historical differences -- most Australians feel no need to privately defend themselves.

It does seem to me that our history here in America has greatly influenced our thinking about guns. Some of my friends tell me that they feel a need to protect themselves from criminals - some even feel a need to have a gun to safeguard against a government takeover. My thinking is that I wish we were more like Australia - on this issue anyways.

The Sapphires | ★★★★★★★★

This movie about an Australian singing group of Aborigines touring 1960s Vietnam military base camps really surprised me! First off the story is based on the wonderful real life story of these young ladies and their manager. Secondly it is set against the backdrop of a most turbulent time - the struggle for civil rights of Aborigines in Australia was so informative to an American like me. Lastly, the music was absolutely divine. Motown songs sung by Australians - who could not love that!

I also liked the way that these folks seemed so real. The tensions of family and stardom seemed to be popping up all over the place! Watching them sing to soldiers in Vietnam flashed me back to a time when my naive innocence was lost. I so resonated with those young people in that time remembering how scary those days were for me. I also liked the 'normal' way the movie came to an end.

I loved this flick and, on a scale of ten, give it ★★★★★★★★.

Catch my other mini-reviews by selecting the Movies link in the menu bar above.

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