Tomorrow night (Wed. 4/26) June and I are giving at talk on “God’s Timing.”  It’s for a CCFC open small group that focuses on God’s calling for your life, career, purpose, etc…  The talk is at 8 PM at a Church Corner apartment (10 Magazine St.) in Cambridge.  Let me know if you want more details!

I think I might take a break from writing about relationships/dating/marriage and focus on career/calling instead.  The talk material could feed a few posts, and I’d like to spur some thoughful discussion.  Also, June and I are going to start sessions with the Threshold Project, a career/counseling group.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

That line is known to just about anyone with any Christian church
experience.  And we see the dramatic examples: Jesus on the cross, “Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Corrie Ten Boom’s story
of forgiving her Nazi prison guard.  What does forgiveness look like in
real life?

Last night at our couples’ small group we were saddened by the
realization that many of us don’t forgive.  Doesn’t that have eternal
consequences?  But in a mobile and transient society, it’s easy to
avoid your debtor instead.  And maybe over time you forget about the
wrongs.  And in a transient society you can lose
friends as quickly as you lose enemies.  Let me quantify this.  On a
scale of 1-10, let’s say that 1 is hating someone, 10 is loving them,
and 5 is feeling neutral.  If Jack hurts me, he’s at a 3.  But one of
my friends, Jill, is an 8.  Then times change, social circles change,
and I no longer see Jack or Jill for a few years.  I’ve forgotten about
Jack’s hurt, and Jill and I have grown distant.  Both of them are now
5′s.  Was there a need to forgive Jack?

Marriage is different because it’s permanent — you’re stuck with the
person for life, and you can’t get away.  So you’d better forgive and
learn to let go of hurts.  Even then, though, there’s a question of
which hurts to let go through active forgiveness and passive
forgetfulness.  Active forgiveness is, “You hurt me, but I forgive you
and no longer hold it against you.”  Passive forgetfulness is, “I was
hurt, but it’s no big deal and I shouldn’t be so sensitive.”  I think
most of us err on the side of too much passivity, but we can’t really
forget the hurt, so we gunnysack, building up baggage and thinking more and more
critically about them.  In that case, it’s better to put in the energy
and bring it into the open, and work at active
forgiveness.  But isn’t it even better to develop a stronger soul that is
not as easily hurt by the actions of others, so there’s less need to
forgive in the first place?  (Do I sound like a Buddhist
here?  Forgive me.)

So this Easter has got me thinking about the resurrection story again. 
I think it’s kind of odd that Jesus is never recorded as saying, “I
forgive you.”  In fact when Jesus comes back to Peter who fled at the
crucifixion, He doesn’t say, “You hurt me.  I forgive you.”  Instead He
just says, “Feed my sheep.”  Is His forgiveness automatic and internalized?  Maybe He’s beyond personal hurt, and maybe
we should strive to do the same.

It’s hard to keep the exercise habit as you get older.  For one thing,
they gym is free when you’re in college, and you do a lot more walking
around campus.  These days I get winded walking to my car in the
parking lot.  Ok, maybe not that bad.  But June and I played squash on
Wednesday at Brandeis ($2 guest pass, unlike the $12 guest pass at
MIT!)… actually we only had one racquet, so I made up this silly
game.  You have to rally to yourself three times while calling out
“THREE – TWO – ONE.”  Then yell “SCORE” while you take your final shot,
which your opponent has to catch before the second bounce.  If you
think it doesn’t sound very strenuous, you’re right.  But both of us are
still sore and limping, two days afterwards.  =P

Anyway, we clearly need a second racquet.  Does anyone have one they
are not using and would be willing to sell or trade?  We have a lot of
DVD’s to trade away since we joined Blockbuster’s online rental
program…

We’re also going to try to craigslist the treadmill after 10-20 uses. 
It’s just too boring to use, and neither of us are that disciplined.  I
would advise anyone buying a treadmill to join a gym and use their
treadmills for a month.  Maybe you’ll discover that you’re not a
treadmill person either.  Squash is much funner than running on a
treadmill.  Even the word is more exciting.  Squash connotes violence
and pain, or maybe juicy harvest vegetables.  Treadmill connotes
mind-numbing futility, ending in existentialism and suicide.

Besides squash, we’re going to add swing dancing for a few months,
leading up to lcshih’s wedding (for which I recruited a swing dance
instructor via ohtoberich).  And then looking forward to the free
outdoor swing dances at the Boston Harbor Hotel this summer again. 
Dancing, anyone?

Currently Playing

San Juan

I never understand commercials where they show a
guy giving his wife a new car (wrapped with a big red ribbon for
show).  I think if I were the wife, I’d be kinda pissed that my
husband spent so much money without consulting me.  So along those
lines I asked June, “What would you think if I just took you away on a
surprise vacation some weekend?”  I was expecting her to do a cost
analysis.  But her eyes lit up, and she asked, “REALLY???”

Over the next few days I checked our schedules, and our weekends were
pretty booked.  I did some rearranging and wrote “Semi-Surprise
Vacation — DO NOT BOOK” on our calendar.  I couldn’t keep
the date a secret, but I could hide the location and activities. 
In the meantime, I told June to pack warm and buy a swimsuit.  =)

Fast forward a few weeks later.  Even after we arrived at the
airport, I kept the pre-printed boarding passes from her.  Because
of a holdup at security, we rushed to the gate, and she didn’t learn
our destination until the pilot announced it!  Our first day was
spent in Old San Juan, where we found an honest shop:

Actually all of the buildings in Old San Juan are painted this way:

I had always wanted to play the board game Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico,
but it takes a long time to setup the board and is not much fun with
two people.  So instead I bought the simplified card game version,
San Juan.  So here we are at the SJ Suites hotel:

The next day we drove down to El Yunque, America’s only national rainforest.  Based on reviews at TripAdvisor.com, I booked a room at the Casa Cubuy Ecolodge.  The view from our room:

The best part?  Almost no mosquitoes!  Because the coqui
frogs eat them.  It was only a 5-minute hike down to a private
trail which crossed a river with boulders and a waterfall.

Also staying at Casa Cubuy was another couple we roped into playing San
Juan with us.  The husband works for a national security
something-or-other, so I can’t show his face in the picture.

Probably the coolest part was kayaking into a bioluminescent bay at
night.  It was too dark for pictures, but the water lit up when
you disturbed it.  They said it was because of a certain type of
dinoflagellate that only lives in a few places in the world. 
Unfortunately, the coqui frogs don’t live here, so the mosquitos ate us
alive.  June counted 31 bites on her left arm alone.    Moral of the story: bring bug spray.

But in spite of this, June rates Puerto Rico two arms up!

I got this email forward from Logan_Cale.  Seems relevant to most readers.  Contact me for attribution credit.

Certain owners and renters in MA may claim a heating fuel deduction. You must have an adjusted gross income of $50K or less if single, or $75K for joint.  The max deduction is $800 for purchases Nov-Mar06. You can deduct next year too.  Renters can deduct a heating bill or 20% of their rent, if they don't have a separate bill.

http://www.massdor.com/help/guides/abate_amend/Personal/Issues/HomeHeating.htm

Some online filing (e.g. TaxEngine) don't automatically ask for this deduction.  You might have to look into the tax forms themselves to add your heating fuel deduction.  It's in Schedule Y, line 14.  On TaxEngine, you can manually entering the number online, and the program will include the deduction in your return.

The total amount of taxes saved isn't a lot, but it is money.  I would have saved $14 if I had heard about this before I filed.

Freewill and Predestination (a post on Dating)

A shoutout to jwkcheng, toothpuller, and dtlee729 — the guys in my car this past weekend for Big D’s bachelor party.  The babes, booze, and betting were great, but what really stuck with me were the late-night conversations.  Stuff that’s hard to come by when you’re out of college.

I used to be big on freewill — the idea that we choose our own path and create our own future.  Yeah, I know the argument that God is all-powerful and knows / controls our destiny in advance (pre-destination).  But since no one knows exactly how they interact or their relative importance, I chose to focus on the part I can control.

When it came to dating, I decided that I could control three factors: how well I understood women, how many women I met, and what kind of impression I made.  So I went to great lengths to improve all three.  I actually bought and read the Anne of Green Gables books for educational purposes!  And I carefully cultivated my social networks, friendster and xanga lists, and the image of a successful, eligible bachelor.

But in the end, I met June through a blind date setup, through the sister of a good friend.  Something totally out of my control.  And that’s made me think about God’s providence and whether I’m a rat in a maze that says “Watch me choose my own direction.” [reference]  Breaking out of my freewill-centric framework leads me to wonder more, to wait more, to accept more.  And to plan less, to worry less, to think less (of myself in particular).  Sometimes God hits us over the head with a 2-by-4, but sometimes he just guides us along the slow current of a mighty river.

So I guess looking back, here are the things that mattered which I could control:

• choosing to grow in maturity (details in a future post)
• being myself by serving in ministries where the opportunity was there — I didn’t meet June there directly, but they gave me experiences which we could compare and feel connected.
• not screwing up the process as I had in past relationships.  Aided by:
• maturity (see above)
• introspection
• openness to dating around and being set up
• a community that knows you and speaks truth and love into you (Highrock)

That list is a lot different than my pre-married list!  It’s a solid reminder to me that I have less control over some things (who I meet) and more control of others (still trying to figure out exactly what to call it).

Bono Preaches

I
presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us
here – Muslims, Jews, Christians – all are searching our
souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our
nation, our God.

I know
I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me
here,
too.

at the National Prayer Breakfast, 2/2/06.  Full text at sojourners.

Country Time

June is going to the International Business School at Brandeis, and she recently met a classmate from this country I’d barely heard of.  I was like, “Is that a real country?”  Her reply: “You are such a (country) snob.”

This, coming from a woman who will openly challenge people in Geography trivia.  I think I’m pretty normal for a college-educated American.  Who has time to keep up with all the near-zero-GNP countries vying for independence and U.N. recognition?  Plus, I learned everything playing Risk in the 80′s, including the famous dictum, “Never get involved in land war in Asia.”  Or maybe that was from The Princess Bride.  Anyway, before you get on your global high horse, maybe you’d like a little quiz.  Which of these 10 are real countries, and which are made up?  (If you don’t know, don’t worry — the list will probably change next year, and they’ll have to print up a new Risk board.)

Kyrzykstan
Kyrgyzstan
Khivastan
Kazakhstan
China
Turkmenistan
Fezzikstan
Tashkenstan
Sao Tome
Elbonia

Would You Take a 70% Pay Cut…

to do more interesting and meaningful work?  Today’s Wall Street Journal reports on a lawyer who did.  For those of us with (or headed towards) high-paying, low-meaning jobs, I wonder what keeps us there.  Fear of financial instability or falling off “the track”?  Attachment to the nicer perks of life?  Lack of compelling alternatives?  I can’t help but think that God has something better in mind — an abundant life.  What would that look like?

Lawyer Swaps Big Salary, Perks To Represent Guantanamo Detainees

By PERRI CAPELL

CareerJournal.com
January 11, 2006

Jobs in human-rights litigation in the U.S. aren’t
plentiful, and anyone seeing Tina Monshipour Foster in 2004 might have
said she was a long shot to get one — or take one.

She was a fourth-year associate in the midtown
Manhattan office of Clifford Chance LLP, one of the world’s largest law
firms, with annual pay of more than $200,000. She had a secretary,
word-processing staff and a car and driver at her disposal when she
worked late. At night, she went home to a loft apartment overlooking
the East River.

But at age 29, Ms. Foster gave it up to become one of
three attorneys working at the Center for Constitutional Rights on
behalf of prisoners at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
She earns less than $70,000 annually and works out of offices in an
older building in the Soho area of New York City. Studded with gum, the
rug in her office is “disgusting,” she says. Home is a studio apartment
one hour away by subway in Queens, N.Y.

…

remainder of the article here (open to WSJ Online subscribers only)
and also on my first comment until they send me a cease-and-desist letter.

Darn It (A Tailor To Cities, or Sew It Goes)

Having lived without a woman in the house for 20 years, I learned
to sew pretty well.  I even sewed my own juggling bags!  Now
that I’m married and there’s a woman in the house, I’m still doing the
sewing.  Just twice as much.  =P

For June and all those other “enlightened” women who don’t know how to
sew, here are my top three things you need to know about mending
clothes with a needle and thread:

1. Match the thread color carefully.  On textured clothing, pick a slightly darker shade.
2. Begin from the inside of the garment, so the final thread ends don’t show.
3. To avoid bunching, don’t pull the thread too tightly.

June’s Torn Sweater Before	After Mending by the Master Tailor