How to work

I remember reading a synopsis of a book about how to "make it" in business. One of the quotes went something like, "There will always be a place in a company for a person who can say, 'Don't worry, I'll take care of that'." The underlying idea is that this person would have the confidence in themselves and the understanding of the problem to handle it to their boss' satisfaction without the boss needing to concern himself (or herself) with the task. I've often quoted this to friends and to people who are looking for work. One of these days, I'll look up the title of the book and read the book itself!

Just this week-end, the sermon was about just this idea. The main text the pastor used was Genesis 30:1-6a. Sorry I can't put a link directly to the video of the message. This link gets you to the page for recent messages. Look at the title Home Offices. It's part of a series of messages based on the metaphor of a house. By all means, watch the whole series but I especially like the Home Offices message.

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So he left in Joseph's care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Genesis 39:1-6a [NIV]

I think the quote I started with came from these verses with special emphasis from the part in bold, "...with Joseph in charge, he [Potiphar, Joseph's master] did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate." The main point of the sermon was to realize that we are ultimately working for God and that is how we should look at our work (no matter how menial). It's like God is contracting us out to the company we work for. What we do reflects on God. It can be a good reflection or bad. It's up to us. I try to work this way but I know I can do better.

The future difference from the past

There were two stories on Friday, May 29 from two different places that look like they were written to be two sides of an argument. The first one I read is from the CNN website titled "Why our 'amazing' science fiction future fizzled". The other is from the New York Times website titled "Docking Brings Space Station to Full Staff". This picture of the "city of the future" is from here.

The CNN article, seeming to be about the "fizzling" what we thought were going to be amazing advances in the future, is kind of mixed up. It talks for a while about failed innovations like the jet pack. Weren't we all supposed to have them by now? Well, no, we weren't. Some writers at one time or another used them as a plot device in their story. No one promised that we would all have jet packs or that we would even want them. Especially with the price of gas now! Then the CNN article seems to get a little more hopeful. After all, a lot of the things that were "predicted" (remember, they weren't promised) actually were invented but just aren't practical.

To me the CNN article is just one more swipe at science and technology, "If you guys are so smart, where are all these wonderful things?" Well, I'll tell you where they are - in the minds of people who had to make a living. Nothing is free and no one wanted to pay for the future. Instead, customers craved the softest tissue paper on earth. Customers craved bigger, faster cars that burned as much gas as could be pumped out of the ground. Customers craved fast food and pictures of celebrities in bathing suits. We got what we wanted. People didn't want a fantastic future with everyone working together for the benefit of all. We found it more profitable to make weapons and for politicians to scare us into using them.

The other side of the coin came in the New York Times article. It was shorter and not meant to be provocative. It was just a simple report that a Soyuz spacecraft had arrived at the International Space Station bringing three more crew members to the station. That brings the total crew to six and is the full complement that the station was designed to hold. What, to me, is great is that the six crew members represent five countries. The station is more like the future Star Trek predicted than the one favored by most science fiction stories. The space station crew are working together to build something for the use of all the people of Earth. And to make this happen took a tremendous amount of innovation, invention and manufacturing. The truth is, the "future", that is "now", is even more fantastic than anyone could have predicted. We carry around a small, battery powered device and can talk to almost anyone in the world. We have access to more information (and yes, misinformation) on the Internet than we can imagine. The world actually has the capacity to feed itself and we could probably get together and cure many of the diseases that troubled us in the past. But it all depends on where we place our priorities. Shall we spend more of our money on looking for more oil or looking for alternative energy sources? Shall we spend more money suing each other over a fence too close to a property line or breaking down barriers keeping agricultural innovation our of a poor country? There is only so much money and so many talented people to go around. Our future is based on the decisions we make today.

Proof that Jesus never married

There have been a few books and movies over the years, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Da Vinci Code for instance, that use the plot device (or perhaps they think it really happened) that Jesus was married.

I can tell you for sure that this is impossible. Jesus was without sin when he died on the cross as payment for our sins. That means Jesus never told a lie. If he had been married, how could he have answered the question, "Does this make me look fat?"

A surprise find in our supermarket

While we were all shopping the other day, I took Emma over to the section that holds a variety of cheeses from around the world. What a surprise when she saw a picture of Wallace and Gromit on one of the packages. Could it be? Wensleydale? Well, yes it was - direct from the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes in the Yorkshires dales.

We had some last night and it was delicious. As Evan said, it was good enough to travel to the moon for.

Peanut farming in New England

Last year, we finally had a garden at this house. Even though we moved in the fall of 2006, we just couldn't get going on a garden until the spring of 2008. It turned out that the soil left by the builders was not the nice loam that had been there. They charged us to haul that away and left us with sandy soil with lots of pebbles and stones. So, we had to buy some loam from the guy next door who runs a nursery and does landscaping. He gave us a really good price. We decided to make a raised bed garden because the thought of mixing that nice loam in with the horrible stuff in our yard was like putting cream and sugar into a glass of bath water and expecting it to taste good.

So, at the end of last year, our garden looked like the top picture. We let the kids pick out some flowers and one other plant to include in the garden. Emma picked a watermelon and Evan picked a peanut plant. I didn't think Evan's peanut plant would do well so far north but we were intrigued by the idea. The plant got nice and bushy and stayed green all summer. We forgot about it in the fall, though, and didn't dig up the roots to dry out the peanuts.

When I dug up the garden this week-end to prepare for this summer's garden, I found some peanuts still in the soil! The picture on the left shows Evan with one of them. Yes, it looks like he's grown a sixth finger so I included another picture of him holding it in his had so you can see how big it is. If only we had more faith in our one little peanut plant and treated it right after it had gone to all the trouble of growing such big peanuts. Maybe Evan will grow up to be President like another peanut farmer we know about.

Medical help and the lack of it

For the most part, I've been pleased with my doctor. He and his staff have helped me over the years although when I was sick back in April, the nurse said it wouldn't be worth the time for them to examine me because I had a virus and they couldn't cure that. I'm not sure how she determined it was a virus over the phone. When my symptoms worsened, I went the emergency room and the doctor there found that I had an inner ear infection, gave me an antibiotic and cured it. But my complaint this time is about two other doctors. My wife's former doctor and the pediatricians who treat my kids.

I remember when the kids were much younger, we'd call the pediatrician about some symptoms the kids had and we'd answer the same two questions each time: 1) Are they still urinating? 2) Do they have a fever? If we answered yes to #1 and no to #2, the doctors didn't want to see them. No matter what the symptoms. I think it is just hard for doctors to treat kids who either can't talk yet or can't explain what is wrong and where it hurts. It is my firm belief that pediatricians should have to take courses at a veterinary school to see how the animal doctors do it.

My wife has always had a problem where she feels hot all the time. In can be the middle of winter and she goes around in a short sleeve shirt. I finally convinced her to bring it up with her doctor (she was sure he wouldn't do anything about it). His answer was to laugh and say, "Yeah, my brother has that same problem." That was it. Maybe doctor's should also have to take some classes at the engineering school. Doesn't a problem like this pique their interest? Wouldn't you think that they would want to investigate something like this? What would the doctor think if he took his car into the mechanic saying it accelerates to high speeds with no warning and the mechanic laughed and said, "Yeah, my brother has a car that does the same thing", and do nothing about it?

One way to fight a "war"

There is a lot of arguing over ways to fight various wars. Some will advocate for going all out. "Total war is the only answer", they say. Others will go the other way and say war solves nothing. Then there are the wars that aren't really wars at all. The war on drugs is one of those. Here the arguments are often similar but in this war, there are some people who say the way to fight the war is to declare all drugs as being legal and this will remove the incentive for the so called drug lords and their minions to be involved because prices will drop. Some would call this not winning the war but capitulating to the enemy. The other side won't have soldiers killing people anymore because they don't need to. They will have won.

We've been fighting this war a number of different ways: keep new users from getting started on drugs, help current users to stop using drugs, intercept the drugs as they come into the country, find and arrest the people who distribute the drugs and in some cases destroy the plants that are used to make the drugs in the first place. It is this final way of fighting the war that was addressed in an interesting story I heard on National Public Radio's Morning Edition this morning. Here is a link to the place where you can hear the story yourself.

What they are finding is that one small area of Columbia which used to be one of the highest coca producing areas of the country is now seeing production plummet. The reason is that the government is helping to develop the area. They are building schools and roads. They are helping the farmers find alternative produce to plant. Because there is less coca production, the armed rebel groups are staying away and leaving the people alone to take care of their businesses and their families. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this really works? Wouldn't it be wonderful if other places can use these methods?

The idea of destroying the coca plants and trying to get farmers to plant other crops has been tried before but now Columbia is showing that this doesn't go far enough. You have to invest more in the towns and people than just handing them some bags of seeds and tell them to go at it. They need roads to deliver their crops. Their children need education to have a hope for a better life. Isn't this what we should just be doing all the time anyway? it seems like we get so easily side-tracked by fighting various wars that we forget what we're supposed to be doing in the first place.