engagement surprise

This past weekend we went back and took some pictures of us and Franklin Maverick Felix Fantastico at the same place that I proposed to Sara in Colorado Springs.  More to come, but thought I would share this one... kind of fun.  Same spot and same pose as that day back in 2005.

DIA sunset

It was sad to leave this and come back to TX... 

It's not nesting

Sara began some sewing for Franklin Maverick tonight and was pumped about it. I asked if this was the start of nesting, to which she said no. She was just enjoying making something for Franklin Felix Maverick (insert other names he has/had(but won't have))...

A slice of TX

Texas has some of the best wildflowers I have seen.  They will cover entire fields and are all along the highway between Dallas and Waco.  There are lots of the classic Bluebonnet, but there are lots of other yellow flowers, red ones that look like Indian's Paintbrush, and all these little white and pink ones called the Showy Primrose.  

The top picture is at B's place (which she has sold now!), and the bottom one is one of her neighbor's place. That second one seems very Texas.  

The String That Binds

I have been digging this song lately:

Pruning Roses

Ever since this past fall I have thought our rose bushes out front needed a trim, and pruning is usually best done before it gets too warm outside.  So in a brief period of productive procrastination on a pleasantly warm afternoon a few weeks back I decided I should prune them.  Now, pruning is serious business.  First you need a sharp tool because you don't want to crush or tear the stalk; this invites problems.  Clean cuts are best for most things like life, whether it be plants, flesh or even emotions.  Second, you should probably allow for some time - don't rush it.  Third, know how and where to cut.  Cut the stalk at an angle - not straight if you can avoid it; above and near new or potentially new growth.  

Fourth, and hardest, you need to know what you want your rose bush to look like.  Lastly, related to this point, you need foresight - you don't need to know, or care for that matter, what you want the bush to look like at the end of that day, nor even the end of that week.  You need to know what you want that bush to look like for the remainder of its life.  In this, as I stared at the bush with on again and off again indecision, I was thinking about what it is I do with purpose that creates the 'me' not of today or next Friday but of years from now.  This got me to thinking about raising kids.  I wondered if I would have the same struggle choosing where to trim and prune for the purpose of shape, direction and growth with children as I did with my rose bush.  After all, what I trim today stops one potential bush from coming into being and brings another to life.  Years from now.  

Just then a neighbor walked by, returning home for lunch.  She said hello and said she couldn't believe I was pruning rose bushes without gloves on.  While it was a short, passing comment, I thought about this for a bit and decided that I liked doing it without gloves more than with gloves.  If for no other reason than that they seem to get in the way.  Just then I was brought back to the job at hand as I was stuck, for the fourth time, by a thorn.  Seemed somewhat poetic that the bush I was pruning stuck it to me again despite my best efforts.  But then again, they are not people or children lacking the foresight to the pruner.  They are rose bushes.   

Moving or bust(s)

The widow sold her house and is moving now. This means there is all kinds of fun stuff around the house...

Professional socialization, status and service

I thought about making this more than one post, but figured few might read this anyways so length probably doesn't matter, ha.  Also thought it was about time a post like this gets put up.  Cheers. 

I think that one of the biggest challenges in life is figuring out how we can pull ourselves out of our own insular daily lives that have very little, if any, impact on those outside of our direct circles of interaction.  How do we make our 'mark'?  This problem (maybe) is more challenging with professions that require a lot of training that is then repaid with more money and prestige   Like de Botton says, we will always struggle with status anxiety, and those with more status both have more to gain (a bigger continuum) and more to lose (higher ledge from which to fall).

One way to avoid the preoccupation with status attainment is to pair life with service - to intentionally and regularly expand our circle of interaction to include those different than ourselves and in need of something.  I used to (may still... jury is out) think that some professions have a much easier time solving this status/service issue than others.  Physicians are an easy example.  The work that they do is directly tied to serving other people.  Academics are also an easy example for the opposite reason - there is almost no connection at all between the work we do and serving other people, typically.  So the solution to insular status anxiety for academics makes it much harder to bridge passions, training and knowledge with helping others.  It almost forces academics to bifurcate their lives into profession and service which does not really fix the problem of connecting with other people because how can one connect with others when they are in that very attempt disconnecting with their self?

But it occurred to me over this past week as I have been thinking through part of the dissertation that this may be overly simplistic.  All professions have beliefs and values that are socialized into the professionals to different degrees.  For physicians, one of the strongest beliefs/values in that socialization process is that of valuing scientific thought and processes which naturally is linked with detaching people from the diseases and health problems that they have.  This detachment is at odds, in a sense, to empathetic and compassionate care for the person coming to see the physician.  It also tends to be at odds with the religious beliefs of the physician because the one puts compassion and empathy at the front and the other devalues and at times even ignores compassion because machines and science have no need for empathy -  even getting in the way at times.

So, like the academic struggling to connect their skills and passions with service to others, the physician in serving others struggles to connect two different socializations, two different modes of thinking and feeling, that contribute to how they think and feel - professional detachment and religious compassion.  Some feel the tension more than others.  Some ignore the tension and bifurcate their lives.  Others uncritically (I don't mean this in a negative sense) accept both professional and religious socializations as they are and the tension never comes to the surface - similar to Gould's non-overlapping magisteria.  

I think that many people struggle with some of this stuff when they think about what they want to do and accomplish in life.  How can my life make a difference?  How can I help people best?  Pretty much any profession has processes of socialization in place and these will also relate to these struggles in different ways.  At what point will one's religious beliefs overpower their professional socialization (if we can think of them in those terms)?  How can they happily work with one another?  Should they?

Daddy loves you

Here is another post about notes in the bathroom at a Baptist university. It says "daddy loves you," which I think may be in reference to God but is both weird and unclear.