Tolerance

I am rather weary of the word “tolerate” and its other related word “tolerance.” I remember these words cropping up like weeds in high school. Despite growing up in a “conservative” area, the ideology of my public high school was very secular humanist. Even then, however, I was wary of the words. I always defined “tolerate” as something one really didn’t like, but lived with because there was no choice—like lima beans for dinner. The one eating must tolerate the lima beans in order to get to the dessert. (Let me say for the record: I actually like lima beans. Maybe I should say celery instead, as I loathe celery.)
Today “tolerate” and “tolerance” carry the implied definition of “one of the majority must deal with any minority-influenced ideology or lifestyle or habit or action one disagrees with and must not say anything lest one be branded a closed-minded bigot.” Okay, maybe that’s over the top, but can people fully disagree when they hear it used in such a manner in media soundbites?
Tolerance is the natural outgrowth of postmodernism, it seems. There is no right and wrong, only what works for the individual. There are no universals left. Since we can’t agree on things because we have no foundation for what is true, good, right, and decent, the only available option is to agree to disagree. Such agreement becomes tolerance because we are both immovable.
The problem is that whether one recognizes truth or not, it is still there. There are still issues that cannot be “tolerated”. If it were truly so, the police would have to tolerate speeders, murderers, and those driving while intoxicated. Rapists must be tolerated for their lifestyle choice, as would child and spouse abusers. They have every right to live the way they wish. Yes, this is demonstrating absurdity by being absurd. There seems to be a point where common society cannot tolerate certain ideologies.
I would agree with the man who stated that tolerance is not love and suggested one tells their spouse, “I tolerate you,” instead of, “I love you.” It’s awfully cold to be sleeping in the doghouse these days. We should love people and not tolerate them. We should not tolerate their behavior but help them change. I will fully recognize gray areas here. In a perfect world this would work perfectly. Of course, in a perfect world this would not be an issue. A teacher cannot tolerate her students hitting each other on the playground. The behavior would be addressed, and the students would work towards correcting the behavior. The teacher would still love the students. To do otherwise, the teacher would not be diligent in her vocation. How can it be any different with us and our neighbor?

Commentaries on Recent News

The bishop prayed to "The God of our many understandings." It’s like singing “Happy Birthday.” He’d like it to be when the singers reach the point when one inserts the name into the song and some people say “Mom” and some say “Aunt Julie” and some say “Mrs. Brown,” yet all mean the same, erstwhile it commences on cacophony. In reality, the “God of our many understandings” is more like singing “Happy Birthday” to multiple people, and some say “Becky” while others say “Jim” and others say “Mr. Rumpleheimer.” The incoherent babble blathers on, and none ever get recognized for who they truly are.

In other news, embryonic stem cell trials moved ahead at Washington University. It is not testing to see if it works; it is testing to see it is safe. This is the next step in clinical trial procedure moving toward FDA approval.
The researcher’s comment was interesting:. "The most important part of course of the Hippocratic Oath is 'due no harm.' And this is the test to see that we do no harm." I would like to pose this question: “What about the harm it causes the embryo?” Perish the thought that society doesn’t “continue its medical pursuits” at the cost of embryos made just to be used for their parts. Do the parts really equal more than the whole? If society cannot recognize the value of one life, how can it determine whose life is valuable to save?

City Streets

The streets in the city of St. Ann, a suburb of St. Louis, has many streets whose names begin with "saint." I am not exactly well-versed in saints, but there is St. Philip, St. Stephen, St. Matthew, St. Lawrence, St. Leo, St. Monica, St. Joachim, St. Xavier, St. Damian, St. Kevin, St. Henry, and St. Cosmas, among others. We often joke that the city founders merely decided to pick a random smattering of names and add St. (or San) in front of it. Maybe that's just the Lutheran in me. Every child of God is both saint and sinner. Maybe they'll name a street after me next. . . or not.

Cerebreoredundogram

The common term is "earworm," but I prefer "cerebreoredundogram". It sounds less parasitic. Both words mean the same thing--that song that gets stuck in your head for an extended period of time. Often cerebreoredundogram turns into "humnauseum"--the outward vocalization of said song.
Yesterday morning I had a choral arrangement of the liturgy stuck in my head—the piece was Joyous Light of Glory, Carl Schalk's arrangement of the Phos Hilaron. Being a portion of Evening Prayer, it didn’t quite fit the time of day.
This morning it was Tell out My Soul, an arrangement of the Magnificat by K. Lee Scott. It remained there all day. I suppose getting the liturgy stuck in one's head is not a bad thing. It gives one a chance to ponder Christ, even if the words pop up inadvertently.

Oh, That's Just Your Opinion

Today’s guest on Issues, Etc. was speaking about abortion and confusing objective claims with subjective claims. During the conversation the guest mentioned a bumper sticker which said, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one,” and indicated that this misses the point of the whole issue. He likened it to saying, “Don’t like slavery? Don’t own a slave,” or “Don’t like spousal abuse? Don’t beat your wife.”
I would glibly offer this statement in response to the original bumper sticker: “Don’t like life? Don’t conceive one.” One on the pro-choice side of the issue might say that this statement is too self-righteously derisive, yet the same person passing judgment on this response would likely not have the same opinion on the original statement. Why is that, do you think? Could it be that one’s right to reproduce and abort is morally acceptable, yet indicating one’s displeasure with such an approach is morally reprehensible?
I will agree that morality cannot be defined by personal opinion if humans are to co-exist and survive to tell the tale. Truly, if morality is defined by personal opinion, then Hannibal Lector is fully self-justified in consuming his victims. After all, they are rude and obnoxious and no one will miss them; in fact, he could be a hero. Oh, wait, there I go again being self-righteously derisive. . .

BO on Vacation

I am back and had a nice Christmas break. That’s the nice thing about doing what I do—I still have a Christmas break, even if it is only half of what it was in college. Even if I take a vacation, though, I am still on the lookout for BO material, and I am never disappointed by the superfluity of available material. Some highlights are as follows:
Watching the dancing fountains in front of a certain hotel “dance” to The Hallelujah Chorus—with text. How idiosyncratic it is to hear “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ” being blared while nearby men hawk female companions (which is illegal in most states, if you know what I mean).
Passing a billboard on the interstate which on one side simply reads, “GOD.” The other side says, El Shaddai, Theos, I Am, God and Allah.” I suppose I should be used to this day and age in which false claims are made about the true God to promote unity in diversity.
Reading the bumper sticker which said, “Defend Reproductive Freedom”. I’m not sure what that means. Does that mean no limits on abortion? Abortion is not freedom of reproducing—it’s limiting reproduction. Maybe they’re protesting the concept of mass sterilization, but that topic is passé, so I guess I’m not so sure what their point is.
Wondering about the billboards in the airport. There were two billboards encouraging conservation and green living. One showed a profusion of lightbulbs, the other showed row upon row of water cooler-sized water bottles. Each one demonstrated the amount of resources (energy or water) wasted by frivolous use of our resources. This got me wondering—why does no one indicate outrage these images portray about the wasteful behavior of people? Is it not my personal choice to leave all the lights on in my house? Is it not my personal choice to use as much water as I want? Why does no one deface these pointed billboards? Yet, put up white crosses in a field to represent humans who were denied the chance of life (forget about liberty or property or the pursuit of happiness), yet see how they seethe. . .