A Baby Boomer's Time Machine -- a Gallery of Forgotten Photos

A Baby Boomer's Time Machine -- a Gallery of Forgotten Photos


Well, some of those photos are just amazing. Amazing. I absolutely love the one with a 14-year old George Harrison.

No cell phones!

Last weekend we visited south Philly, and stopped in at an extremely good and interesting tea shop on 4th Street, the House of Tea. Not only do they sell lots of great tea, they have a very interesting history, as you can see from the Our Background section of their website. You can read about the man who began this store. It's one of those great, surprising American stories about a guy who decides he would like to try lots and lots of different careers.

I was also bemused by the sign on the door of the shop, which reminded me of Luke's diner in the TV series The Gilmore Girls. I didn't think that business owners who forbad cell phones really existed. But they do!

Here rests offspring of the love of God, Friedsam a Solitary

Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata, Pennsylvania
September 29, 2007

My churchgoing plans for the last weekend in September were upended when it turned out that I needed to spend Saturday and Sunday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania taking care of my grandchildren. So I took the train from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia after work on Friday, and arrived in lovely Lancaster about an hour later. I wasn’t sure if I would manage to get to any church service at all with a 10-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl as my worship companions. Sure, I used to go to church all the time with three young children, but those days were long gone. Plus, my three children had been sitting through church services since they were a few months old, whereas Anthony and Bernadette were not nearly so accustomed to churchgoing. Would I be able to visit a new church under these circumstances?

I had wanted to visit Ephrata Cloister ever since I first heard of it. When I arrived in Lancaster I bought a local newspaper, and learned that there was a fair in Ephrata that Saturday. This gave rise to a plan. I decided to take Ant and Bern to the Cloister, and then to the fair afterwards as a reward for good behavior. If all went well, perhaps I would be able to judge how well they would do as church visitors.

My knowledge is more fragile

Are you familiar with Edge? It’s a website set up by the Edge Foundation, which was established to “promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” The website has lots of features, but one of the more famous is its World Question Center, where they have been asking a wide-ranging group of people a question each year since 1998, and posting the answers.

The question for 2010 is “How is the Internet changing the way you think?”

Here is a portion of Kevin Kelly’s answer (Kelly works for Wired):

When I do long division or even multiplication I don't try to remember the intermediate numbers. Long ago I learned to write them down. Because of paper and pencil I am  *smarter* in arithmetic. In a similar manner I now no longer to try remember facts, or even where I found the facts. I have learned to summon them on the Internet. Because the Internet is my new pencil and paper, I am "*smarter* in factuality.

But my knowledge is now more fragile.

I have experienced similar sensations. I am constantly amazed that we seem to have something like the computer on Star Trek at our disposal; you can just ask a question, any question, and get an answer (usually lots of answers) in a few seconds. We can’t just speak the questions and get the answers, as they did on Star Trek, but that time is probably coming soon. It’s astounding!

But there is that downside – my knowledge also seems more fragile. Kelly goes on to say,

 For every accepted piece of knowledge I find, there is within easy reach someone who challenges the fact. Every fact has its anti-fact. The Internet's extreme hyperlinking highlights those anti-facts as brightly as the facts. Some anti-facts are silly, some borderline, and some valid. You can't rely on experts to sort them out because for every expert there is an equal and countervailing anti-expert. Thus anything I learn is subject to erosion by these ubiquitous anti-factors.

My certainty about anything has decreased. Rather than importing authority, I am reduced to creating my own certainty — not just about things I care about — but about anything I touch, including areas about which I can't possibly have any direct knowledge . That means that in general I assume more and more that what I know is wrong. We might consider this state perfect for science but it also means that I am more likely to have my mind changed for incorrect reasons. Nonetheless, the embrace of uncertainty is one way my thinking has changed.

Just being aware of people who think differently is one of the blessings and curses of the Internet. It reminds me of my project of visiting different kinds of churches. Sometimes it seemed like a very ecumenical, open-minded, tolerant kind of thing I was doing, challenging my presuppositions and beliefs. But other times I felt pulled in the opposite direction – I found that I really disliked some ideas or viewpoints even more than I had before visiting a church that held them (and, in the case of my visit to the Quaker meeting, I found that I liked the meeting just fine, but was surprised to find myself appalled by the journal of their founder, George Fox. I had expected to like him.) Sometimes I felt less tolerant after visiting a church.

Well, I’m a former evangelical, and perhaps one of the most obvious characteristics of evangelicals is their conviction of certainty, an attitude which is extremely frustrating to everyone else. I’ve noticed that some former evangelicals retain the conviction of certainty even after leaving an evangelical church – they just transfer that attitude to a different denomination, or faith, or viewpoint, and become completely certain of something else. But they have a hard time embracing uncertainty.

It’s interesting to think about this loss of certainty as an aspect of the Internet age, and good to remember that it can be disconcerting for all sorts of people. In general I assume more and more that what I know is wrong.

Photo courtesy Flickruser Marco Bellucci

Sitting through 10 minutes of movie previews and ads

An interesting article posted at Cheap Talk. But I agree with the commenters more than the original article. This is a case where the discussion in the comments is just as good as the original post.

Paternoster Row

I was very pleasantly surprised to receive information from a scholar of medieval history. I'd like to frontpage a comment from Chris Laning, who responded to a question in my post, Joys and concerns:

Just discovered your blog and have been reading back issues. :)

You wrote: By the 16th century, though, reform movements in Europe championed by people like Martin Luther, John Hus, John Calvin, and John Wycliffe (were most men named John at that time?) . .

Actually -- yes, more or less. By modern standards, the Middle Ages and Renaissance on the whole had a remarkably small number of common first names, and especially for men, the most common were *very* common. In 16th century England, nearly one out of every three men was named John (about 30%) and 70% of all men were named John, Thomas, William, Richard, or Robert. Seventy percent of all women were named Elizabeth, Joan, Margaret, Anne, Alice, Agnes, Mary, Jane or Katherine. If you're interested: http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/christian/fairnames/

How about that? Isn't the Internet great?

 Chris blogs at Paternosters, and also maintains an informational website,  Paternoster Row, about historical rosaries and paternosters. Both very interesting sites. (Oh, and she knows a lot about the history of knitting, including knitting before 1600 AD.) Again, isn't the Internet great?

Biblically directed

Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Collingswood, New Jersey
September 23, 2007

So far in this project I have attended one church service in the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC) denomination, and one in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination, both more conservative offshoots of my own mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) denomination. Today I wanted to visit an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), about which I knew little except that this is the group that is less culturally conservative than Bible Presbyterian (ie, they do not preach total abstinence from alcohol). Also, I have known some very, very nice members of the OPC church, and so I had a generally favorable impression of them.

First I checked Wikipedia. The OPC split off from the mainline Presbyterians in 1936, when J. Gresham Machen and other conservative Presbyterians met in Philadelphia to form a church they at first called the Presbyterian Church of America. The mainline group (PCUSA) filed suit against them for their choice of name, contending that it was too close to theirs, and in 1939 the conservatives renamed themselves the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (I guess they lost the lawsuit). At any rate, OPC churches are awfully close to PCA churches (they came close to reuniting in the seventies), and, according to Wikipedia, the OPC is pursuing ecumenical relations with the BPC. I’m sure the distinctions among the three are painfully clear to their members, but to mainline Presbyterians it seems as though it’s just us (reasonable and right) against all three of them (unreasonable and wrong). It probably looks the same way, in reverse, to them.

Religious OCD

Do you suffer from scrupulosity? There's a group for that: the Scrupe Group.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold;

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

                                                            Robert Hayden

Surely one of the most touching and astute poems ever written about a difficult family situation. The last two lines are perfection itself.

Photo courtesy Flickruser Michael Hodge

Against the relentless happy talk

It’s remarkable, considering the tone of so many Christian sermons and messages, that any church has honest people show up at all. I can’t imagine that any religion in the history of humanity has made as many clearly false claims and promises as evangelical Christians in their quest to say that Jesus makes us better people right now. With their constant promises of joy, power, contentment, healing, prosperity, purpose, better relationships, successful parenting and freedom from every kind of oppression and affliction, I wonder why more Christians aren’t either being sued by the rest of humanity for lying or hauled off to a psych ward to be examined for serious delusions.

The paragraph above is excerpted from a post on Michael Spencer's blog, The Internet Monk.  As you can see, he's a pretty powerful critic of the evangelical church, powerful especially because he loves the church so much. In the post from which I drew the quote, titled "When I am weak: Why we must embrace our brokenness and never be good Christians," he takes on the relentless prosperity/victory/joy-filled nonsense that so many evangelical churches preach, and reminds them that "This life of faith is a battle full of weakness and brokenness. The only soldiers in this battle are wounded ones."

The entire post is great, and so is Michael's blog. He has an interesting group of readers, including several atheists and agnostics, who have found in him a Christian who does not demonize or demean them, and with whom they can have a serious conversation. His book, The Coming Evangelical Collapse, will be coming out soon. (Actually, I'm not sure if that will be the final title of the book, but it's what everyone who knows about it calls it. You can Google the phrase "coming evangelical collapse" to see what people are saying about his ideas, and you can read his commentary on the topic, published in The Christian Science Monitor last March.)

One more thing - Michael recently received a cancer diagnosis. Prayers, many prayers, would be much appreciated right now.

Shield your joyous ones

I have been truly blessed by reading Gretchen Rubin’s blog, The Happiness Project. Yes, my immediate reaction to the very idea of a happiness project – what kind of dopy, new-agey claptrap is this? – was skepticism and scorn. But I read what she has to say, and was soon won over. Her writing is thoughtful, thought-provoking, and far from simplistic. Here’s an excerpt from a post on her resolution to be more positive:

"A prayer attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo includes the line, Shield your joyous ones:


Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ;
rest your weary ones; bless your dying ones;
soothe your suffering ones; pity your afflicted ones;
shield your joyous ones.
And all for your love’s sake.

At first, it struck me as odd that among prayers for the “dying” and “suffering” is a prayer for the “joyous.” Why worry about the joyous ones?

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, for the first time, I began to appreciate the people I knew who are joyous. I understood how much effort it takes to be consistently good-tempered and positive.

For example, I remember that one day when we were visiting Kansas City, my father came home from work and my mother told him, “We’re having pizza for dinner.” As she knew he would, my father answered, “Wonderful! Wonderful! Do you want me to go pick it up?”

We all knew that my father would have answered that way even if he didn’t want pizza for dinner, and even if the last thing he felt like doing was heading back out the door. And that kind of consistent enthusiasm contributes a lot to everyone’s happiness.

We non-joyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones. We rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety.

At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we’re sometimes provoked to try to shake the joyous ones out of their fog of illusion—to make them see that the play was actually stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it. Why is this? I have no idea. But that impulse is there."

Read the whole thing – it’s very worthwhile. And if you are a “joyous one,” God bless you. Please stay that way. If you are not by nature a “joyous one,” please take some time today to appreciate people who are, and to resolve to shield them from the spite of others, including your own. They make our lives easier, and richer, and better. And if you know or live with a naturally joyous child (as opposed to a naturally downhearted or anxious child – they do exist, poor things) – how very fortunate you are! Do all you can to shield them while they accomplish their work of making your life happier.

Next post: looking at a different type of happy-talk.

A toast to work and to routine

The lovely mug pictured above has put me into the mood to Get to Work most every weekday for the past ten years or so. I bought it at a little shop in the Galleria on Market Street, Philadelphia, when I began work in the field of medical publishing in 1999, and the mug accompanied me when I switched to a job in the field of educational assessment. I realized about a year ago that this is one of the material objects with which I have most contact year in and year out. Years of pleasant associations have conditioned me to feel ready for a good day’s work every time I pick up this mug (it is quite hefty, which I think adds to its semi-magical powers) and take the first sip of the warm, dark, energizing beverage inside – usually double-strength hazelnut coffee that I have ground that morning. I love this mug.

Starting a new year after a long vacation (I was off 12 days in a row this holiday season) has made me think a little about routine and the cessation of routine. We all love breaks in our routines, such as holidays, but they are made possible only by the establishment first of a good solid routine. Routine and Cessation of Routine are the yin and yang of a pleasant life, each necessary to the other. How wonderful it is to have a holiday! And how wonderful to be able to go back to work! (Especially in this era of job uncertainty, layoffs, and economic worries.)

So I lift my morning mug to toast 2010, and also to toast Work and Routine – sometimes underappreciated, but really very wonderful things in themselves. And, if I can toast my mug by raising my mug, I’d like to do that as well. Here’s to you, Work Mug!

Where's Waldoticon

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Next up in the Church Visiting series

Biblically directed
I attend Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Collingswood, NJ, where I hear a good sermon and  am given a book and a shorter catechism.

Here rests the offspring of the love of God, Friedsam a Solitary
I visit the Ephrata Cloister, which was a thriving community of unusual religious folks long ago.

Dangers of complacency
I visit St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lancaster, PA, where a member warns the congregation that their financial situation is poor, and a visiting pastor preaches against complacency.

My mother walks two hours to church every Sunday
I visit the Roman Catholic congregation that worships on Sunday evenings at the Campus Catholic Ministry at Stockton College, in Pomona, NJ. Here I meet a remarkable Ugandan priest, Father Grace.

Will heaven be boring?
I visit Come Alive! church in Medford, NJ, which was in the news for a while in 2006 when its pastor defended a couple in the congregation who had been charged with starving five foster children in their care. I hear lots of praise music, and am touched by the story of a couple in the church who are in the process of adopting a Chinese girl with medical needs.