Watching at the Cross

In my church there is a Maundy Thursday service in which we wash each other's feet (my kids' favorite service of the year) and then after communion the stripping of the altar, when all the decorations are removed from the church. An eight foot crude wooden cross is brought in (it sits against the side of the building the rest of the year) and leaned agaist the altar, and members of the congregation take turns keeping a vigil at the cross for an hour each all night.

I was there from 6 to 7 this morning, and I did feel God's presence. But I will tell another part of the story, not that part. When I went in I noticed a small pile of sawdust on the polished wood of the altar platform, and when I went to the altar to pray I heard a faint noise coming from the cross. About 6:30, which must have been about sunrise, a carpenter bee emerged from the cross and started flying around, trying to find the sun. Now if you don't have carpenter bees you need to understand that they are larger, louder, and slower flying than bumble bees. The poor bee was stuck inside the church because its home had suddenly been moved. It must have been terribly confused trying to figure out where it was.

humor

I can't resist a link to this morning's laugh: Redneck photos.

Honesty

I was going to sit out this issue, but what Dorothea writes about honesty pulls me in.

I was reading the developing discussion and accepting the idea that literary or symbolic truth is what matters. After all, as a historian I work with the idea of social construction; I don't believe in one truth. But like Dorothea, I have a history that makes honesty very important to me. I wouldn't want to feel close to someone and then discover that the story they have been telling was intended to deceive.

So the question to me is whether weblogs inherently imply honesty or give us genuine connection with another person (different from reading a novel). I like what Steve says about weblogs being a new form distinguished by reading over time as the author writes. In a larger sense, of course, Weblogs aren't inherently anything, but clearly two traditions have clashed here: the weblog as a way of exposing the self (which is what drew me into the community), and the equally strong on-line tradition of creating a character on-line that purposefully doesn't match the person actually doing the writing. I realize the second can also be liberating, but I don't like the feeling of having been fooled (I hate April fools day).

I certainly don't chose to tell everything, and I know even in more honest writings than these I edit events for narrative flow. But I seek to represent myself, not misrepresent myself, and I would rather live in a world where fiction is identified as such.

Update: Burningbird has a wonderful discussion of these issues.

laptop teaching

I'm teaching a workshop on the easy way to get started teaching laptop courses, for professors who don't want to completely rethink their courses but rather move into it one small step at a time. Part of the trick to this approach is that making material available to students on the web and assigning out-of-class exercises using computers goes a long way to satisfy students who want their laptops to be useful. It isn't necessary to actually have students use their laptops often in class.

But the center of this workshop needs to be ideas for exercises in which the students do use their laptops during class. The idea is to try a few of these the first year, then keep the ones that work and add a few more, and gradually build up what the students use the laptops for in class. My list so far of true in-class exercises (not just making available material on the web) is:

• students work in groups in class to solve sample problems


• students fill in a brief opinion survey in class (eg. on WebCT) that then becomes the basis for discussion


• brief quizzes at the beginning of class or after a segment of lecture to see what students understand and what they need more help with


• students spend 5 to 10 minutes doing a web search on a discussion topic and then share what they have found


• take a field trip and have students bring their laptops and write about what they experience on site


• students write tests (particularly if open book) on their laptops because many write more comfortably now with a wordprocessor and it saves the professor from having to read their handwriting
  

Professionalism

I was not comfortable with the chiropractor, both because I found the forceful adjustment threatening and because of the hard sell he gave me that I had to keep coming back. He told me I had arthritic degeneration in my spine; I assume most people do by the time they are 47. I was told 10 years ago I had arthritic degeneration in both knees and I do now use custom orthotics, but beyond that I'm not going to worry about the problem until it starts to give me pain, which it doesn't. I see the body as a good-enough machine, with lots of imperfections that can be ignored until they cause problems, not as a fine-tuned machine that has to be kept in perfect alignment. Perhaps those who treat their bodies as fine-tuned machines will live longer, healthier lives, but most of them I know are going to need knee replacements long before I do.

I'm not a fan of the authority games played by doctors, but I must say I respect more now how they have their act together. I tell my students that professionals are different from businessmen because they are responsible for serving the best interests of the client, they don't try to make money and let the buyer beware. Medical doctors (allopaths) have established at least the appearance of that professional role deep in their culture. I suppose the chiropractor believes that what he is recommending will all help me, but it sure felt like a hard sell where he was trading on his professional authority and my necessary trust to try to sell me much more than I needed. It was a real shock to have to treat someone who is in the role of a doctor like a car salesman. I found the comments to How-to lessons at Making Light helpful in thinking about that.

I can't tell at this point what difference it made, particularly because the most significant symptom (numb tingling toes) was already starting to get better. I probably will go back twice more since my massage therapist swears it will help me (to the point where he went with me to help me with how scary the force would feel to me). But the hard sell rings all my alarm bells.

Proud

"Beside the towering gray bridge the lighthouse still bravely stands. Though it knows now that it is little, it is still VERY, VERY, PROUD."
The Little Red Lighthouse and The Great Gray Bridge

Forgiveness

I heard a sermon Sunday about forgiving and forgetting and taking the risk of restoring relationship. I know the priest was coming out of issues he has to face himself, but it was a shock to hear forgive and forget. I'm more comfortable with ideas that say that forgiveness does not have to mean restoring relationship, which may not be safe to do. I don't want to restore relationship (beyond a superficial one) with an abuser on any grounds less than that person fully acknowledging what happened and their responsibility for it, and that isn't going to happen.