Faith + Reason = Truth

A year ago today, I posted on this blog. My first post in 4 years. I noted how I was struck that inspiration always (and only?) strikes in January, through no planning or effort of my own, and here we are yet again. Full disclosure: 2024 was unusual: I doubled my post count for the year by composing a June review of the Battle of Pavia Tapestries exhibit at Fort Worth’s Kimbell Museum (which subsequently moved on to San Francisco; this was a MAGNIFICENT exhibit!).

The new year is perfect for reflecting after the holidays when things finally settle down and give way to normalcy. Not so much this year, however. After losing my wife’s sister’s husband to cancer 4 weeks ago, my wife’s mother passed away on Friday. She was 81. It can be said of her passing that she is truly in a better place, having been in a hospice bed in the bedroom of her own home for the past 13 months. Something kept her hanging on, until she no longer could.

It seems to be a common thing, people getting through the holidays and then letting go, and there are obvious reasons for why this happens. With Jane, she was a fighter with seemingly nothing left to fight for, who proceeded to fight for 13 months after being sent home in early December 2023 with no hope to live. Christmas 2023 was a long shot; really, looking back, she was given no shot at all. But as she continued to live and we continued to care for her, knowing she would never be able to sit up on her own, let alone get out of the bed, each day became a gift. If we are honest, we can say that we did not always look at it in those exact terms, at least not every minute of every day that we spent with her. It’s hard. It’s inconvenient. It’s hopeless. It puts the lives of the caregivers on hold, be it for a week or a month or a year.

And then, slowly then suddenly, it happens. Then, and only then, are we afforded the luxury of looking back with nothing but thanks, feeling above all, grateful. Grateful for her life, grateful for her death, and grateful for her renewed life with her Lord and Savior.

Thank you, Nana.

Europe had been a dream for years, since long before my wife and I were my wife and me. She had been to Germany and a smidgen of France with work before I knew her, and also to Berlin and Madrid while we were dating. Crushingly, I could not go with her on either occasion, but we were young, in our early-mid 20's, and there was always next time!

Twenty-something years later, we were not going to be denied. We went someplace every summer for a week or so, always to great American destinations. Nothing wrong with seeing one's own country before exploring the world, right? But with enough frequent flyer miles amassed, it was time to pull the trigger - a trigger that required being pulled eleven months in advance on American Airlines if we were to get the dates and airports we wanted. So we booked it last July for this June, as soon as school was out for the kids, and before the dreaded July and August. July and August bring two things to Europe that are to be avoided if at all possible:  heat, and lots of tourists. There are plenty of tourists in June, and the weather is certainly already warming up, but the northeastern U.S. as well as much of Europe gets out of school around the end of June, so things get far more crowded then. The masses make places and activities more expensive and tougher to reserve, while many Europeans take time off and close down their shops and restaurants. Meanwhile, the nice, warm weather of late spring and early summer turns into oppressive heat in some areas once late June and early July roll into town.

Flying from Dallas to Europe required a big decision:  which airport to fly into? Rome and Paris were always 1a and 1b as far as dream destinations, so we thought we would fly into Paris and then home from Rome. Maybe four or five days in each place, a week and a half total. Flights among big cities in Europe are short and cheap, so it would be easy to get from Paris to Rome. Many of these intercity flights are about an hour long and cost as little as $50 or $60 one way, which was shocking to see. One problem though:  none of us, especially my high school daughter, had any desire to be in Paris with the ongoing terrorist attacks that have targeted major cities including Paris, Brussels, and London. Rome is always a target as well, but whether due to the prayers of the faithful or extra tight security throughout the city or a combination of the two, it has not been rocked like the others. So we decided to fly to Rome, then home from Barcelona. And on the excellent advice of many, to extend the trip from 10 days to 14.

With the flight to Rome came a five-hour layover in New York, sandwiched between a 3.5 hour flight from DFW to LGA and a 8.5 hour flight from JFK to Rome, during which time we had to gather our baggage when we landed at LaGuardia, get a ride to JFK, and wait to take off from JFK to Rome. The flight back from Barcelona via Philly would be much simpler. Making all of this infinitely more doable was the fact that my wife and daughter made the bold, winner move of making their packing of two weeks' worth of clothing work with NO CHECKED BAGS. I cannot overstate how amazing this was for all of us! They made the sacrifice, and we all reaped the rewards. This act of kindness was made possible by the decision to do the trip in airbnb apartments, no hotels. Airbnb can mean multiple bathrooms, at least one living area, a kitchen, and crucially, a washing machine for clothes. Amenities such as these (and of course, air conditioning) can all be selected when the search for lodging on airbnb's magnificent website is being conducted.

Alas, all was not bliss when it came to some of the finer details of the airbnb experience. More to follow tomorrow.

Bongiorno, and prego!

In my 48th year here on earth (which actually makes me 47, no doubt coming as a bit of a surprise to some people), the dream of visiting Europe was finally realized. Two cities have always been at the top of my list, and the first destination on this trip with my family was one of them:  Rome. Paris will have to wait.

For two glorious weeks, there was an endless stream of places, objects, and human remains that were many hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of years old. This is not the case in America. The palpable sense of awe within each of us will stay with me for what I can only hope will be the rest of my days. As one who believes that travel is always worth it, no matter the cost or inconvenience or locale, seeing places such as these has instilled a sense of completeness within me that I didn't see coming. Let me explain...

Life is change, and change is life. When one finds a soulmate, the feeling that an irrevocable change has taken place is very real. That alteration, however, continues. The change keeps changing. It's the same with the birth of your child, or in our case, children. Yes, everything changes in that moment, but the changes keep on coming for the rest of their, and our, lives. In the ancient places that we experienced, some more ancient than others, there was an inescapable separation of "then" vs. "now," with the process of change somehow absent in the things themselves. The artifacts are still there (allowing for some decay and erosion) just as they have been for centuries.

The ruins, or objets d'art, or often still-beautiful and fully functional structures such as they were, had very obviously been created by people who are no longer here, and in that sense, they are creations that are frozen in time. They do not change. The Arch of Constantine remains largely, if not completely, as it was when it was created 1,702 years ago in the year 315. When I stood a short distance away, aware of the perfect late afternoon/early evening rays of sunlight that fell upon it, the only thing to do was to contemplate the countless others throughout the ages who had done the very same thing. Their clothing may have been different, as would the backdrop of other structures and surfaces, but the thing was the same, as were the people. Those people could have been us, but for being born in a different time, and we them. Our souls were created for eternity, while our experience in that physical space and moment in time is so fleeting as to seem almost non-existent. Somehow though, the memory persists forever.

This rumination has a point. Other people may be about to embark on similar journeys, if not tomorrow or next week, then maybe some years down the road, so in the hopes of providing some useful information to you and them, the plan for the coming days is to post something about each town we visited. I'll share details about the trip itself, what worked and what didn't, touching on our mostly positive but not perfect first experience with airbnb, traveling through Italy, France, and Spain on planes, trains, and automobiles (including rental cars and buses), phone usage for navigation and social media while relying on the cheap and awesome Google Project Fi wherever we were, the things we did and did not do...ok, I can start to see why so many people do travel blogs.

Arrivederci!

What will people look back on as obvious, universal truths in one hundred years that are currently divisive debate fodder?  Two things come to mind:  first, that abortion is barbaric; second, that ObamaCare, aka The Affordable Care Act, was necessary, despite the ugly, "un-American" way that it was enacted.

As a compassionate Republican (or conservative Democrat, even though I've only ever voted for Republicans; these party definitions are truly no longer useful for most thinking, reasonable Americans), there is a conflict between what I believe and what my political options are.  The pro-life Catholic that I am has no choice but to support Republicans, while the pro-humanitarian looking out for my fellow people and earth might gravitate to programs championed by Democrats.  The desire for small government, coupled with strong protection of the American way of life requires my weight to be thrown behind the Republicans, while the environmental, anti-big oil and anti-fracking citizen of the world can only, realistically, root for the Democrats.  Where will things stand in the year 2115 though?

Reading my 8th grade son's paper on the "barrier-crossing" topic of the 13th Amendment, I was struck by the simplicity of its one main, glorious sentence, a sentence which changed the course of an enslaved race, a whole nation, and the entire world:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

That is all there is to Section 1 of the 13th Amendment.  There is a Section 2, which simply states, "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."  That's it.  Those two sentences comprise the entirety of the addition the Constitution of the United States to end the institution of slavery here.

Does that seem at all controversial, barrier-breaking, or otherwise worthy of the United States tearing itself apart over for four years?  Not in the least.  But I was once again moved by my son's words, where he stated all points of view admirably.  The enslaved were now free, with all that freedom entails.  Freedom to live, to move, to work, to get an education, to have and to raise a family as they so choose.  Another perspective was that of the liberators, the people with the power to fight on behalf of the powerless to right a grave wrong.  The third point of view was one that I have never really considered:  the people who came into a world, into a way of life, with laws and rules and customs, who proceeded to do the best they could with their lives under those rules, and who then found themselves facing an alien threat to "steal" or otherwise forcibly remove that which they had worked for.  These were people who did not consider slaves as fully human.  Just as you and I are free to purchase a pet or work animal and sell off the offspring with the expectation that no one is allowed to come and open up the barn or the gate and set all of our belongings free, slave owners operated and existed without regard for human freedom as it pertained to their "property."  They, if not rightfully, then certainly expectedly, fought anyone who tried to steal from them that which they had lawfully and at great economic cost to themselves acquired.

Which brings us to the present day "controversies" of legal abortion and affordable health care being made available to all Americans.  When I told my son that his paper had made me think, and that I could see parallels in the modern debate about ObamaCare, with we Republicans claiming that "they can't make us hard-working, successful people pay for other, poor people's stuff!" I followed it up with this:  when I look at it through another lens, that of one who thinks, "all people in America, the greatest nation in the history of the world, really should have affordable health care, even if it costs the haves more than the havenots, and to think otherwise kind of seems a little stingy, what do you think?"  He did not even take a second to think about it before replying, "well, YEAH.  It DOES sound stingy.  It is, isn't it?"  It is indeed.

I won't go into abortion here (you can see some of my other writings in this blog on that topic; it's no secret where I stand and how I feel).  I can only say, with great hope and near certainty, that one day people will look back on what we do to unborn babies with disgust, shame, and horror, wondering to themselves, "how did half of America in the year 2015 STILL think that was ok?  Are you KIDDING me?!?"  How did half of America in the year 1861 STILL think slavery was ok?  Are you KIDDING me?!?

- Roy H. Williams

"Every life has a scoreboard and how you choose to keep score is up to you."

- Roy H. Williams (yeah, same dude)

Has your life been auctioned off to the highest bidder?  And what if you had a competing bid denominated in non-$ currency?  Time, for instance?  Or fulfillment?

It's a fact that the majority of Americans (I'm not sure if similar studies have also been done in other nations) feel more strongly about loss than about gain.  Also true:  fear is a greater motivator than reward.  So if presented with the exact same opportunity, but from different perspectives, people will be far likelier to choose one specific scenario over the other [again, even though the payoff is exactly the same], yet make a different choice when the tables are turned.  Here's an example:

You make $5,000 a year at your teaching job.  You are offered $7,500 a year as an accountant, due to a sudden shortage of accountants.  You know you would not enjoy the accounting job at all, that it would require far more hours per week and weeks per year (only 2 weeks vacation?  PER YEAR?  Are you kidding?), and that it would require a 1 hour and 40 minute round trip commute each day, instead of the 10 minute drive to the school.  And you love teaching.

But you would be increasing your salary by 50%!  What would you hypothetically choose?

Teaching.  Not everyone would stick with teaching instead of going to accounting, but under this scenario, the majority would.

Now let's reverse it.  You make $7,500 a year as an accountant.  You don't enjoy it at all, the hours are long, and the commute is bad.  An administrator friend offers you a position as a teacher, due to a sudden shortage of teachers, and knowing that you've always wanted to be a teacher.  But it only pays $5,000 a year.  Do you take it?

For most people, the answer would be no.  They would feel that they could not afford to take such a large income hit, even though they'd love to do it and the quality of life would be far better - not to mention the summers, spring breaks, and winter breaks at home with the kids.

To be sure, a good deal of the decision comes down to sticking with what you know, being a typically risk-averse human.  But if you would make the decision to stay a teacher, due to the high value of the non-$ currency that goes with that sale of your life, why would you stay with accounting for merely extra $ with none of the non-$ currency offered by the teaching profession?  Is your life really valued in $ and nothing else?  If so, then it can have a concrete value assigned to it (pathetic and disheartening, yet still true).  But if not, if it can only be properly valued with a combination of $ AND intangibles, then it could be argued that its value is immeasurable (ask any accountant how impossible it is to value "intangibles" for accounting valuations).

For all the talk about how under-valued teachers are, I think we don't consider the most critical part of the valuation process.  We only account for the $ value of teachers, since that's what we most readily understand and assess.  But the non-monetary value to society, to the kids, to the family of the teacher, and most of all, to the teacher her/himself, is priceless.