Remembering Merry L. Johnston

(Originally written on April 28, 2013)

My Grandma Johnston would have turned 85 today (April 29).  I still remember very well her final days back in 2006... it was certainly a time of lots of change in my own life.  I was on vacation back home after spending most of the previous year at Hillsdale College.  Home just didn't feel the same as it had before... lots of my family and friends had moved forward quite a bit in their lives over the past year.  I suppose I had too.  But one thing that didn't change was what loyal and caring grandparents Grandpa and Grandma Johnston were to me.  Over the previous year, she still called my dorm room regularly to talk about the things we usually did, and they both actually came to visit me at the college one time and really enjoyed it.

That summer, the two of them still came over to visit regularly and attended my church softball games.  But I started to notice a gradual change in my grandma over that time.  She was never the most outgoing person in the world, but she was always really happy when visiting with her family.  She was tired a lot more often and would complain about how tough it was to get old.  I didn't really know what to make of it.  We didn't know it at the time, but she was dealing with the early stages of Wegener's, a disease I had never heard of and really still don't know much about.

Nonetheless, my family still has some good memories from those final weeks of her life.  My grandparents were always huge Tigers fans (although they also watched the Cubs after I had picked them as my favorite team many years earlier), and after many years of losing they were having an amazing season.  Of course, there was always baseball to talk about.  And there was plenty to report from my year in college.  One of my last non-hospital memories of my grandma came one evening out at my aunt and uncle's house, when we all went out on a boat on the lake.  We were talking about things I had studied in college - Austrian economics, Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, and the like (how many 21 year olds talk about this with their grandparents?) - along with lighter stuff, like all the great friends I had made.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it felt like the calm before the storm... I just had a feeling that there wouldn't be many more nights like this one.

It was around the end of July when my grandma was finally admitted to the hospital, as her health situation was getting much worse.  I would head up there almost every day to visit, until August 10, when the doctors were losing her and were forced to do emergency surgery.  I think possibly the most emotional moment of my life came that afternoon, when my grandpa walked in and saw her in her hospital bed dying.  Overcome with grief, he collapsed into a chair, and after he somewhat composed himself said he had no reason to live without her.  That might have been the first time as an adult that I openly cried.  The surgery was successful, and she showed slight improvement over the next few days, but on August 16, in the late afternoon surrounded by about a dozen family members, she passed away.  There was a memorial service, the day before I was scheduled to return to Hillsdale.  I typed out some remarks to read at the service that ended up being about four pages long... unfortunately I think I have since lost them.  The next day, as my family drove away after helping me move back to Hillsdale, I kinda looked around for a minute and stood by myself before catching up with friends, praying for strength from God to get through the coming days and weeks.

It was tough, but I did make it through and ended up, as always, having another great semester at Hillsdale.  A lot has happened since then... I graduated from college, started my career, and my grandpa did pass away in 2009... but my grandma's impact on those who were closest to her has never changed.  Today is yet another opportunity to commit myself to continuing the godly legacy that she passed down to future generations.  For all the other memories and interests that we shared, by far that was the most important.

Forgiveness

(Originally written on March 25, 2013)

I recently completed a Sunday School class at church on forgiveness.  This is a concept that is often not fully understood in our society.  Before the class began, I wasn't sure if this was really something that I needed to learn about, but through the five weeks I learned a lot and also thought about how the concepts presented in the class apply to my own life.

First off, how do we define forgiveness?  I always thought about it as accepting an apology and forgetting about a wrong that someone committed against us.  It's actually more complicated than that, especially when we consider that there are different "levels" of wrongs that people do to us (and that we do to others) and different levels of hurt, depending on what they do.  Forgetting or overlooking a wrong is not the same as forgiving.  If someone accidentally bumps into my desk with a cart at work and they say "I'm sorry", I'm more likely to say, "It's ok" or "Don't worry about it" than "I forgive you", and I imagine many of you are the same way.

I think that's because I don't really consider that a "wrong" that someone has committed against me, both because it's not a big deal and it was a total accident.  Even if someone cuts me off in traffic, though I may consider that an intentional wrong, I have usually forgotten about it after a few minutes because in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal.  But is that the same as "forgiving"?  This is where it gets tricky.  And if it's complicated for something small, it only gets much more complicated when it's something big, and involving someone close to you.

In the book we were reading, one definition that was given is that when someone does wrong to us, we "give up the right to retaliate".  By retaliate, I don't think the author only meant "repaying" them by doing evil in return.  I think he also meant not letting that person "live rent free in your mind" as the saying goes.  Even if you can't hurt them in return in real life, you can still hold onto anger inside your mind, and to me that's a sign that you haven't fully forgiven someone.  This applies especially to someone who has wronged you but is now deceased, or that you otherwise aren't able to contact anymore, either because you don't know where they are or the hurt that is there has separated you from that other person.

To me, it is critical to understand the difference between forgiving someone and overlooking a wrong that they did.  Forgiving someone immediately for a major hurt that they cause for you is not good, in my opinion.  One example from the book was a school where a kid came in and shot dead a few of his classmates.  The next day, other students made a sign saying that they forgive the shooter.  I understand that they were trying to do something good and be Christ-like, but I also think this was wrong for a couple of reasons.  First, it may have given the shooter (and others thinking of doing the same thing) the impression that what he did was acceptable when it clearly is not.  In any society, bad decisions must have negative consequences (including legal penalties where appropriate).  Otherwise, what incentive is there to make good choices?

The second reason is that it is unhealthy to try to immediately forget a major wrong caused by someone else.  I wonder what those kids who made that sign went through emotionally as day after day passed when their friends were gone and the community was mourning their loss.  I can't imagine that they felt compassion towards the shooter forever.  I've seen experiences where attempts to forgive someone immediately resulted in even more resentment from the wronged person later on.  When you have more time to process what has happened and are holding back anger, it comes out all at once at the wrong times and is more difficult to overcome.

Now, most of us will never experience something like the school shooting mentioned above.  But I'm sure there are people in your life who have wronged you.  While it's important to demonstrate God's love as much as possible, you also need to do it at the right time and after an appropriate amount of reflection, which both depend on the severity of what happened.  You also cannot allow someone else another opportunity to hurt you all over again; indeed, that person should recognize that what they did was wrong and honestly try to change for the better.  Just because we are supposed to forgive does not mean that we are supposed to let people get away with evil things or let them take advantage of us.

Anyway, this essay got long really fast, but this was a very beneficial class for me.  Hopefully you enjoyed reading and thought more about what forgiveness is and how it applies to your own life.

What's in a dream?

(Originally written on March 11, 2013)

I have a lot of dreams when I'm sleeping, as I imagine that many of you do as well.  No, I have never once had a dream that I can remember in which the Cubs win the World Series.  That probably comes as a shock to anyone who knows me well; it does to me too.  I wish I had an explanation.  Actually, I very rarely have dreams that depict the future.  Almost every dream that I have is about the past, where I am either reliving something that happened a long time ago or I am communicating with people who have passed away.

For whatever reason, this seems to happen pretty regularly.  I've had countless dreams in which my grandparents were alive again (my grandma died in 2006 and my grandpa in 2009).  It usually isn't one of those deep conversations where they give me advice, tell me what heaven is like, or anything of the sort.  Usually it just involves them being at my parents' house, and we're all there just eating, watching baseball, and talking politics like we so often did.  I also have a lot of dreams where my childhood dog, who passed away in 2009, is alive again too.  Besides that, I have regular dreams where I am in college or in high school again, and even a few in elementary school.  (I have to say, it's a big relief when I dream that I have a test the next day, then wake up and realize that it wasn't actually happening!)

Sometimes, I wake up at night after this happens, listen to the silence around me, and think about those past memories or a person that I miss.  In the few minutes it takes me to fully wake up, I have to convince myself that those things actually did happen and think about what my life used to be like.  Even when I'm wide awake in the evening by myself in my apartment, I sit and think about this.  It's hard not to get a little emotional in times like these.

I've heard a lot of people talk about dreams in which they are living through some future event; in some cases, wondering if God is trying to reveal or tell them something.  Again, this virtually never happens to me, and I've thought for a long time about why this is the case.  I'm not really knowledgeable in psychology.  But I remember learning in a class years ago that dreams can be based on recent memories (such as when you go to bed and are thinking about things that happened throughout the day, you might have a dream about it), or they can be based on subconscious thoughts in your mind.

Very recently, something hit me.  Could it be that I am way too caught up in the past?  Do I allow the mistakes I've made and what others have done to me affect my life way too much now?  I've always been someone who is concerned about the future and trying to make the best decisions possible.  But I'm also not much of a risk taker.  Sometimes I'm too comfortable living in the past and not trying something new, or I get hung up on things I've done wrong and let that affect my confidence now.

I've been saying for years that I should focus less on the past, and I think I've gotten better at it.  But perhaps this is a sign that I still have a long way to go.  I cherish many of the great times that I've had in my life, and I miss a lot of the people who have left us.  But I can't go back and relive all that.  I'm only 28 years old.  There's a big future ahead for me, and I want to take full advantage of it.  And just maybe, I will someday have a dream in which it's 2013 again.

Thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird

(Originally written on February 20, 2013)

I was first assigned to read the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee when I was a freshman in high school.  I decided to use it as a selection for my book discussion at work; after more than 50 years, it's still considered a classic of American literature.  It's an interesting story with lots of themes and subplots; everyone who reads it has their own experiences and takes something different from it.  I would imagine that what I focused on and what I have learned from my two times reading it is probably just as different as the next person's.

There are two elements of the book that I focused on the most.  One of them is the innocence of childhood and the memories that come from it.  My childhood was a lot different from that of Jem, Scout, and Dill, but when I was reading this, especially the first part of the book, I couldn't help but think back to my own childhood.  Some of my favorite memories include playing baseball from dawn until dusk with my friends, building massive snow forts the day after the first winter storm of the year, playing my Game Boy and Super Nintendo with my brother, watching movies with my parents, and talking to my grandparents.  There are plenty of advantages to being an adult, but when you're a child, you don't have a care in the world.  It's a time that everyone should cherish.

The other theme I thought about frequently was the many differences in society between Alabama in the 1930s and the Midwest in the 2010s.  In the era that To Kill a Mockingbird portrays, there was a lot more interaction within neighborhoods.  In this book, everyone knew everything about everyone else; nothing was a secret.  When something happened, word spread quickly.  And people were much more tied to their land, homes, and communities.  Families had certain reputations; if a father acted one way, then his father likely did, and it was expected that his children would too.  We don't have this nearly as much today.  People don't stay in the same location for a long time nearly as often; they move around for jobs or for other adventures.  Meanwhile, it's not uncommon for people who live right next door to almost never talk.  Think about the people that you interact with the most, especially on a site like Facebook.  How many of them live close by?  How many of them do you even see in person on a regular basis?

Of course, there are more differences in racial attitudes as well.  The racism that is portrayed in this book, if not completely gone, is much more frowned upon today.  Even though the testimony of the witnesses at Tom Robinson's trial all but proved his innocence, he was still found guilty.  To many people today, it seems incomprehensible that a man's testimony would be virtually ignored just because of his race, but that's exactly what happened in this book.  Atticus fully expected that the jury would quickly convict Tom; he thought it a positive sign that the jury took a long time and wrestled with this, but was still dissatisfied with the result.  It was nice to see children like Jem and Scout, and even adults like Atticus and Miss Maudie, realize that justice was not served and to be upset about it.

So, in this book we see both the light and the dark side of human nature.  There is so much more to discuss from this book, but in writing a short essay like this, these are the points that were most important to me.  If anyone else has thoughts on this book, I would be glad to hear them.  Or, if you haven't read it yet, I would recommend it.  I'm more of a nonfiction person, but in this book I still think there are plenty of lessons and plenty of things to discuss for readers of all kinds.

Being a man

(Originally written on February 6, 2013)

I first heard one of my all-time favorite quotes a while back from a man hosting a TV show on marriage on a local religious channel. I don't remember the exact wording, but his point basically went like this: "Doing what you feel isn't what makes you a man; doing what you don't feel like is what does." He was talking about how men shouldn't allow feelings to control their actions, as it will lead to many bad and irresponsible decisions.

Now this might sound a little crude at first, but to me there is a lot of wisdom in this. When I think about a typical day for me, the majority of things that I do are things that I don't feel like doing. I have a good job; I certainly don't hate it. But most days I would much rather stay at home in my chair reading or watching TV. I don't enjoy having to constantly scrape the snow and ice off my car like I've had to lately, but I don't have a choice. It's a pain having to fix food, wash dishes, and clean showers and sinks, but I'm a bachelor living by myself and no one is gonna do it for me. (Don't take this the wrong way; if/when I do get married, I want to split household chores down the middle.)



Just imagine for a moment if I got up one day and just decided to do whatever I feel like, without thinking of the consequences. If I don't go to work, I won't have the money to pay my bills. Or if I did go to work and someone is rude to me, and I just said whatever I feel like, it wouldn't take long for me to get fired that way either. If I didn't take care of my apartment, it would be a disgusting and very unpleasant place to be. As a child, I learned the importance of acting responsibly. I would have rather watched TV than cut the grass or play baseball with my friends than do my homework, but those were important life lessons that I can carry with me today.



This will be even more important if/when I ever get married and have a family. As a husband and father, it will be my responsibility to provide for my family. Of course, money is a big part of that, as I would need to go to work to support them even on days I would rather do just about anything else. (I'm not opposed to women working either; really I don't have a strong preference either way.) But there are other ways, too. I believe that I would get a lot of joy from being there every day and giving emotional support to a woman, but let's be honest. There will be days when I'm really tired and distracted by other things, making it difficult. But that's the commitment you make when you get married; indeed, there's a reason everyone says, "for better or worse." It's my duty to be there for her whenever she needs it.  And if I have kids, I know there will be times when I don't want to discipline them or will be too tired to feel like driving them to various events, but again it will be my responsibility.



So, my conclusion is that taking responsibility and doing what you know has to be done is what makes you a man, not doing what you feel. I know that this can apply to women too; in fact, I'd be curious read a similar essay written by a woman. For now, just writing from a guy's perspective, I take a lot of pride in taking this kind of responsibility. Am I perfect? Of course not! I'm still immature in some ways. But I'm trying to learn and grow more every day. Even if there are days when I just wanna be a kid again.

Time for the Super Bowl

(Originally written on February 2, 2013)

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the Super Bowl is tomorrow.  It's possibly the biggest cultural event in America.  This year we have one of the most interesting story lines in the game's 47 year history, as the two head coaches facing each other are brothers: Baltimore's John Harbaugh and San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh.  The other day I saw their parents being interviewed on the news, and of course they are very proud parents but their father said that they will purposely avoid being seen on TV during the game.

Now, I thought this was just wonderful.  I don't know why broadcasters are so obsessed with putting players' and coaches' families in the stands on TV after every other play; I find it to be incredibly annoying.  Anyway, Mr. Harbaugh said that he would rather that the focus be on the players and coaches on the field, since this is their big moment.  He talked about how players spend their entire lives preparing for this day: all that time in junior high, high school and college; practicing, studying playbooks, and showing endless determination, just so they could chase the improbable but amazing goal of one day spending three hours playing in the biggest sporting event in the world.

If you know me at all, you know that I am always looking for deeper meanings in things, even in something like a football game.  But it's true; these comments got me to thinking about where I am in my life.  In my nearly 28 years, I've worked really hard and made a lot of decisions, some of which worked out, but not all of them.  But everything that I've done and that has happened to me has led me to this very moment, sitting at my computer on a snowy and freezing cold Saturday.  To work at my job and to face the challenges I currently have, I've needed the experience and life lessons that only can come with time.

I know that I am still relatively young, and I hope that there are many more great things in my future.  What is going to happen down the road?  Right now I have no idea.  But I know that God has a plan, and that at this very moment he is preparing me for it.  One day, I hope to look back on where I was in early 2013 and say, "This makes perfect sense.  I needed to go through all that to get to where I am today."  I've been doing that a lot in the present day, but I know the story is far from over.

So, I hope everyone enjoys tomorrow's game.  But while you're having fun cheering for the Ravens or 49ers, take a moment to think about everything these players and coaches had to do to get to this point.  When you see the winning team celebrate, it's not because what they did came easily or quickly.  Rather, they are celebrating because what they did took a lot of hard work and determination from many people for a long time.  Even in our own lives, anything good takes a lot of time, hard work, and preparation.  If it comes easy, then what's the point?

What is wisdom?

(Originally written on January 27, 2013)

What is wisdom?  What exactly does it mean to be wise?  Well, you could find a dictionary and read the definition, but I really don't think that's adequate.  To me, it's about much more than just being smart or acquiring knowledge.  Allow me to explain.  When I graduated from high school, nearly ten years ago now (still hard to believe), I looked at the world the same way that I imagine many other 18-year-olds do... that I have my whole life planned out and that I already know everything that I need to for being successful in life.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was just the beginning.  When I got to college, I quickly realized that it would not be a simple validation of everything I had learned and accomplished up to that point, but rather a learning and eye-opening experience unlike anything I could have expected.  In college, I made some great friendships and gained a lot of book knowledge, especially about my major, political science.  But I also learned about life; asking questions, challenging my beliefs and those of others (in a civilized manner, of course), and perhaps most important, being open to listening to and learning from others.  I was constantly amazed at the knowledge of my professors.  And, living in a small dorm where you get to know a lot of the guys pretty well, I benefited greatly from my interaction with them and learning about all their different experiences from the first 18-20 or so years of their lives.

I don't remember when exactly it was, but eventually I realized something... that to be wise, I must first recognize that I do not know.  What don't I know?  Well, a lot, actually.  And I work in a library, the one place in the world perhaps more than any other where I am confronted by this fact daily.  Every day I see thousands of books I have not read, hundreds of CDs I have not listened to and hundreds of movies I have not watched.  Sometimes I even get stumped with a computer question from a patron and have to work through the problem not knowing what the answer is.  Just the other day I spent about an hour trying to help a lady download e-books onto her Kindle because it wasn't working and she didn't know how to fix the problem.  She came to me for help, but it turns out that I learned just as much as she did.  I don't want to miss out on using even my current job as a learning experience; in fact, many of my co-workers, most of whom are older than I am, have been willing to offer guidance as I try to build my career path.

Yes, even today, just a couple of years shy of 30 years old, I am still learning daily.  Even after college, I found myself learning more about life all the time.  The first two months after graduate school when I had no job at all, followed by nearly two years of working in a job outside my career path while getting rejection letters from employers almost daily, were an incredibly humbling experience.  Indeed, patience teaches virtue perhaps better than anything else.  Being deprived of something that we either need or desire may bring temporary pain or discomfort, but it is in this way that we gain strength, build character, and learn more about ourselves.  Not to mention, it has helped me personally with my faith in God.

Whether it be looking for a job, waiting for a spouse, or hoping every year that this will finally be when the Cubs win a championship (I know someone out there was thinking it, lol), it all has a purpose and a lesson, even if it does lead to many frustrating days.  I once heard a preacher say that every time someone tells you "no", that means that you are one step closer to your "yes".  When we have to wait for something, not only can we learn a lot, but it will also make success that much more enjoyable because of all the time and hard work it took to get there.  I hope for all of you out there, that when you finally do achieve a goal after lots of patience and hard work, that it is better than you ever imagined.

Now after all of this, am I claiming to be a truly wise man?  Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide, lol.  But I am still relatively young and I know with certainty that there is so much more out there for me to learn and to try to understand, and I look forward to those challenges in the future.  You’ve probably heard the saying, “Ignorance is bliss”, and maybe I was a more blissfully happy person ten years ago.  But there’s no doubt that the 2013 version of me is stronger and wiser than the 2003 version, and I hope that the 2023 version will be even better.