Posted by Doug
Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:00:31 GMT
The occasion that gave me time to read TDD was a 3 hour round-trip flight to New York City. I’ll get into what I was doing in NYC later, but I wanted to talk about the experience itself. One of my strengths/weaknesses is that I typically think more highly of myself than I should. Sometimes I just call it self-confidence, other times it’s flat out pride and even arrogance.
I only had a day and some change and didn’t really know which of the billion things to do in NYC given my limited time and limited budget. What I decided on is a self-paced walking tour of Manhattan.
So, I’m walking around Manhattan on Sunday by myself. New York is one of those places where it’s easy to be alone while in the middle of everything. Like many, I enjoy people watching. What I observed is an incredible amount of diversity and similarity. Many people in NYC dress, walk, and act similar. However, the range of people is mind boggling.
I just kept thinking, with all these people, surely I’m walking right past lots of people who are top notch in their field. In fact, I’m probably walking past people who are top notch in my field. I’m walking past people who are mediocre or who are barely making it. I’m just one of the millions of people here.
The whole experience made me feel quite ordinary. It reminded me of Randall Swartz’s Just Another Perl Hacker. Of course, there was a bit of showing off in that tradition. In a way it was false modesty.
I hope the effects of this trip can add some temperance to my attitude. I like to believe there’s a reason that customers, clients, and employers come to me to work for them. However, I need to also remember there’s thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of others they could have chosen instead.
Posted in Programming, Photography, Christianity, Community | no comments
Posted by Doug
Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:22:00 GMT
Sometimes I hear things that make me so thankful for how blessed I am. I was listening to a story on
NPR’s Morning Edition about how families have been encouraged to break off all communication with mentally retarded children when they’re placed in a group home. They were interviewing a guy remembering what happened when his sister, Molly, was sent away. He said he kept asking his parents, “Where’s Molly?” They’d never answer. It wasn’t until after his father died that he found her name, birthday, and
SSN. He was able to find her fairly easy.
What struck me about this story is the very real pain the family went through during this time; ignoring whether their decision was right or wrong or whether the advice was good or bad. There are lots of families in pain. My family has had problems over the years. Some of them were quite painful. Relatively speaking though, our family is quite blessed. All of our problems were of our own making. With the help of God we have survived, overcome, and grown. I’m so thankful we don’t have problems that are lifelong and not overcome-able.
One of the men I respect most at church is about 40 years old with three kids under 10. He was diagnosed with MS last year. My friend at work has a child with Autism. Another family from church had a child die from SIDs. Several of my friends are dealing with parents with terminal diseases.
I guess most of those people I’ve listed above would probably object to me saying these problems aren’t overcome-able. You can overcome in spirit, but the issues don’t go away. I see so many people struggling and in pain. It makes me both sad and thankful. There’s no real protection from calamity. Christians, non-Christians, faithful, unfaithful, agnostic, atheistic: all are subject to trouble.
I pray daily that God will watch over my family and keep us safe. I struggle with the meaning, purpose and results from prayer. I’ve studied the subject to some extent. I don’t know why God chooses to answer some prayer and not other. I still pray. I pray for specific things and general things. I pray for God to protect my family and I pray for the strength, peace, and patience to handle the struggles I do have. I’ve had prayer answered and prayer not answered. I should do a better job of journaling my prayer and my perception of God’s response.
I didn’t intend to launch into an essay on prayer. It just seems to come up often. My main point is I feel sympathy for families in pain and I’m thankful God has protected us from such calamity.
Posted in Christianity | no comments
Posted by Doug
Sun, 15 May 2005 00:21:00 GMT
I just got back from Northeast Church of Christ’s annual Men’s Retreat. I think there were about 30 men from my church who attended. Dr. Michael Westerfield came down from Rochester College to be our speaker. I found him warm, personable, and insightful. He spoke from I Corinthians 12 – 14, but mainly focusing on 12.
He talked about talents and using them for the common good. Also how/why we need to actively work at getting everyone to identify their talents and to respect everyone’s talents. He quoted:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. —I Corinthians 13:13
He said, “I, personally, believe we live in a time when many of the things thought of as ‘Spiritual Gifts’ have passed away. What we have left is faith, hope, and love. In the Churches of Christ we have the faith and hope down pretty well. We need to learn to love.”
It was a great evening/morning that really focused me on serving God in the Church. I hope I can maintain the commitment to serve.
We stayed at Potters Ranch in Union, KY. I highly recommend these facilities. It was only $45/night/person including two meals. The cabins were modern and clean, yet woodsy. There was a lot of attention to detail. Even the traditional camp bath house was comfortable. They don’t have a website (or Google doesn’t know about it), but their number is (859) 586-5475.
Posted in Christianity | 3 comments
The occasion that gave me time to read TDD was a 3 hour round-trip flight to New York City. I’ll get into what I was doing in NYC later, but I wanted to talk about the experience itself. One of my strengths/weaknesses is that I typically think more highly of myself than I should. Sometimes I just call it self-confidence, other times it’s flat out pride and even arrogance.
