Category Archives: faith

An open letter to myself

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Dear Steve,

In a few days you are going to be 40 years old. I’m sure at this stage of your life, you are asking yourself what this means and how you should handle this milestone. You may be asking yourself questions like, “Am I officially ‘old’ now?” or “Is it all downhill from here?” or “I can’t pretend to be young anymore, can I?”

I’m not sure I can provide answers to these big questions. Instead, I thought you would benefit from some clear, blunt advice, a verbal slap upside the head, if you will. For example:

1.) Quit the negative attitude about everything, already. Contrary to what your internal child says all the time, you aren’t Chicken Little and the sky most definitely is not falling (well, at least most of the time it’s not). No wonder you struggle to make friends; noone likes a negative attitude.

2.) Guilt is so overrated. Stop feeling guilty about everything, like you’re a failure in everything you do. Accept the fact that you ARE guilty and you ARE a failure and focus on how wonderful it is that in spite of all of this, God loves you for who you are.

3.) Have more fun. Even your own kids are tired of your grumpiness, your short temper, and your tendency to not want to do anything just for fun. They say to you, “Dad, why can’t you have more fun?!” LISTEN TO THEM! Lighten up and stop being Mr. Gloom and Doom all the time.

4.) Practice being thankful. You just don’t get it, do you? You are so incredibly fortunate and blessed beyond measure. You enjoy a standard of living that the vast majority of people in this world can only dream about. You have a family of your own. You have so many family members and friends who love you and care about you. You are in good health (ok, you’re tired all the time, I realize, but there are much worse things that you could have to endure, such as not being able to see, walk, or talk).

5.) Let go of all that hurt, bitterness, and anger. As I already stated, noone likes to be around a negative person. Do yourself a favor, open your eyes to the fact that YOU, not that other person or persons, are the one who is most negatively affected by holding grudges or bitterness. Don’t wait for that other person to ask forgiveness, you forgive them, and then move on.

6.) Get over yourself and think about others more often. At least a portion of the depression that you struggle with can be attributed to self-centeredness. Navel-gazing, in other words. You want to be happier? Try serving others, try finding out how you can help someone else, and then do it. Jesus said, “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33)

7.) Stop comparing yourself with others. You will never be the smartest, handsomest, strongest, whatever -est. Not that you shouldn’t keep trying to get better at some things, but understand the futility of always trying to “Keep up with the Joneses” and instead, be thankful for what you have and who God made you to be.

8.) Love your wife and kids, your family, your friends! I don’t think you love others enough, especially your wife and your children. You can never love too much, in my opinion. Love is the greatest thing. And by the way, Steve, it’s not good enough to just “think” love or “feel” love but to act out your love, to show it every day to those around you.

9.) Who cares if not everyone likes you? For just about all of your life, I’ve noticed that you’ve sought after the approval of others. You know what? The only approval you should care about is God’s. You need to think about eternity, not temporary things, and you need to look for ways in which to fulfill God’s will in this life and seek after His approval. Wouldn’t it be great to hear him say, at the end of your life here on earth, “Well done!”?

10.) Last but not least, seek out God’s will, not your own. Left to your own devices you are a sorry mess. It’s amazing but true that God loves you and wants you to accomplish great things for Him. That should be your career, your life goal.

So Steve, you are about to become officially middle-aged. Or as your wife once flatly stated, more than half of your life is already over. Big deal. Forget about what is past and look toward what lies ahead, what is truly long term. Life is hard, yes, but it is meant by the Creator of Life to be enjoyed. My advice to you is, work on enjoying life — the simple things — more and you’ll be happier than you ever thought was possible.

Life is hard

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Life is hard.  Do you ever feel so overwhelmed, so downhearted that you find it hard to literally and figuratively put one foot in front of the other?  When doing even the most routine and little things seems impossible or too much to handle?  When you can burst into tears at the drop of a hat, or, worse, sink into the isolation of your own mind and cease communicating with others around you because you hurt too much?

Somewhere I read once that depression is the result of unexpressed grief.  There is a lot of truth to that definition, I think.  I feel a lot of grief today and most days, grief that somehow I can’t express and get out there and purged from my system, like smoke from a smokestack.  Would that I could let it out so that it might disperse and lose its grip on me.

I know what is happening in me and around me but still I tend to shut down.  I know it is selfish and that’s a bad thing, so I try to get out of the mire but with limited success.

Today I was going to speak at UIUC GSLIS but I canceled my trip early this morning.  Michele had a very bad night and it was clear around 3:30a that there was no way that I could go and leave her in that state.  My mother-in-law was going to be with Michele most of the day but I would have had to leave at 5a and she wouldn’t have been able to get to our house until 9a at the earliest.  Michele was scared and I was, too.  I don’t regret the decision for a moment.  It was the right thing to do.

Yet I feel like I let others down, especially the Hendersons, the husband and wife team who’ve been such good friends to me and who invite me every year to speak to their class.

So many different thoughts and emotions are swirling around in my head.  Why is this happening to us?  Will there be an end, a result, a treatment for Michele?  Will we need to deal with this for the rest of our lives?  How on earth can I keep it all together for her sake and for the sake of our children?  Then I think about how fortunate we are, and how blessed.  So many other people suffer so much greater hardship, worse than I can imagine.  I know there are people who are dealing with loved ones who’ve died, who struggle to find something to eat and go hungry for days, who are in excruciating pain and misery.  How selfish is it for me, in contrast, to feel this way?!

Above all else, though, is the certainty in my mind and heart that our God cares, more than I will ever know, and that He will provide us with all we need.  Though life is hard, I will trust in Him.

Some crystal ball reflections

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Recently my mentee at UIUC GSLIS asked me to look into my crystal ball and articulate some thoughts about what lies in store for technical services librarianship. What follows is my response. I publish this here because although my points aren’t polished and well-defined, what I wrote to my mentee expresses some of what I personally think about library-related topics that are popular right now.

Where do I start?! Those who work in tech. svcs. are in need, more than ever, of a management mindset. Not necessarily management responsibilities, but a management mindset. By this I mean that we need to understand the broader pressures and trends that managers, especially upper-level managers, have to cope with and prepare for. We can no longer be (if we ever were) narrowly focused on, say, cataloging of print books and only print books. This luxury only exists in a handful of really large or special libraries. We need to be very aware of user-oriented trends such as the whole “social web” or Web 2.0 discussion, and how that might alter user expectations of what we provide to them in terms of access paths to information.

In terms of concerns and anxieties, well…I am reminded of a quote I always see in the signature of emails written by a friend of mine: “Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby.” This causes a smile to come to me every time I see it. Put simply, I worry that in the rush toward new technologies, new ways of interacting with and meeting the needs of users, too many of my colleagues find it easy to forget or ignore what is in the past. In many ways I do believe the Bible verse that states something like this: “There is nothing new under the sun.” I believe this has application in libraries. We are not to be bound (pardon the small pun) by the past, necessarily, but we at least need to acknowledge a.) that there is a past and b.) understand at least some of that past to put the present and future into a right perspective. I’ve said this to people over and over again and I’ll repeat it here as an example of this point. About 10 years ago, when I was new to the profession, one of the really hot topics was outsourcing of technical services work. People were either up in arms against this trend or actively applauding it as revolutionary and innovative. Truth is, it was neither. Outsourcing has existed for a very long time in libraries and one big example of this is in the realm of shared cataloging. The Library of Congress distributed its cataloging records on 3×5 cards to other libraries throughout the U.S. and (maybe) the world, as long ago as the early 1900s. That is outsourcing!

Particularly in this era of the “social web” I am worried by so many librarians who are leading “the revolution” and proclaiming how wonderful and how great everything is that relates to blogs, wikis, instant messaging, etc. Those things ARE great but please, folks, get some perspective on them! Understand that libraries have ALWAYS striven to be social and interactive and patron-oriented. The way some of the library technorati talk these days, you’d think that libraries have been forbidding prisons until the social web came about. That’s ridiculous. Most of what is new is actually evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Don’t get me wrong: I am heartily in favor of trying new things, of experimenting, of innovating, etc. My wife calls me a technogeek and I guess that’s an accurate made-up word. My problem is just that new developments need to be understood and perceived through the lens of historical perspective.

The Dixie Chicks + The Simpsons

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We were able to watch part of the Grammy’s last night. I normally don’t pay a lot of attention to award shows like this, but last night’s show stood out to me for negative reasons. Make it three negatives: the three women who make up the Dixie Chicks. It would be really difficult for me to point to a musical act in recent memory who behave as childishly and with such little grace as the Dixie Chicks. I thought it fitting for Natalie Maines — their chief mouthpiece — to quote the Simpsons in her acceptance speech for one of the five awards they were given last night. What better way to describe them? Do I differ from them in terms of political leanings? Sure. Do I disagree with their “platform” and their victim attitude? Sure. Do I think they are incredibly gifted, amazing musicians and vocalists, some of the best, possibly ever? Sure. Do I like many of their songs? Sure. Do I agree that they should have the freedom to say what they like? Sure. The Bible says, “Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.” What Emily Robison, Natalie Maines and Martie Maguire choose to say reveals much of what they are like inside. Based on what I’ve seen and heard from them, I hope some day the Dixie Chicks will grow up.

A quiet Sunday morning

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I am enjoying a quiet Sunday morning, with everyone else still in bed. The house is peaceful and quiet. Outside, everything is covered in fresh snow. Since we cleaned last night before going to bed, everything is fairly tidy for once. Moments like this are pretty rare so I am savoring it!

Yesterday we all went shopping together for groceries and various other things. Usually these trips are filled with crabbiness on the kids’ part, or whininess, or short tempers and frustration on our part. We had some of that but by and large, the trip went well and we accomplished what we needed. I even managed to get a long overdue haircut at the end of the trip, while Michele stayed in the car with sleeping little ones.

We are going through some difficult things right now but we trust in the Lord. Trust is a really difficult thing for me. I am the kind of person who always sees the glass half empty rather than half full. Yesterday I was reading some postings by a Christian recording artist named Cindy Morgan about this issue (her website is at http://www.cindymorganmusic.com/). She writes:

“I first had to ask forgiveness from God, forgiveness for not trusting. Forgiveness for not trusting. Because it is like saying to God, “You really don’t know what you’re doing and You should really let me handle this. Let me take control.” As if an ant could drive an SUV. As if I could rise and set the sun. As if I have ever had control. I never have, I just thought I did.”

I thought she put it well. I am still learning to trust.

Kindertransport

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My thoughts today turn to an acquaintance who is very gravely ill and may not live much longer. Her name is Ines and she has a twin sister, Eva. I’ve known them all my life and also known that they have a rather interesting, and tragic, history. You see, they are survivors of Nazi Germany, Jewish by birth, who were separated from their family when they were only eleven or twelve years old and sent to Great Britain in 1938 or 1939 as part of the Kindertransport (see http://www.Kindertransport.org/ for an excellent history of this rescue operation). As far as I know, they never saw their family again and I assume they were all killed. My Grandma McCallum knew more of their story but this is as much as I know. I don’t recall Eva or Ines ever talking about this experience, at least, not when I was around.

They are really special people and I fondly remember staying with them a few times over the years when attending what we called “special meetings” (basically, a Bible conference held over a three-day period, usually Friday to Sunday) in New York. For a number of years, Ines worked in the World Trade Center. In spite of what they had been through, I don’t ever recall them being downhearted. They were always cheerful and full of hospitality to others.

Last year I watched a moving documentary of the Kindertransport, called Into the Arms of Strangers (see http://www2.warnerbros.com/intothearmsofstrangers/), which was presented with an Oscar for best documentary film in 2000 or 2001. I encourage anyone who doesn’t know about this part of recent history to look it up in your local library and to watch it.

Hitting the pause button

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We are going through a series at church about dealing with this crazy, hectic, overstressed life we lead. Last week the focus of the sermon was on the need to pause and reflect, using Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a prime example. It says in the Bible that when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her of her chosen role, “she pondered these things in her heart.” (Luke 1:29) I enjoyed this aspect because hitting the pause button is something I need as much as anyone. Reference was also made to the fact that we need to look around us and see the beauty of nature, which God created and formed. In our fast-paced lives, we tend to miss God’s work all around us.

A soloist closed the service by singing Chris Rice’s amazing song, “Hallelujahs.” As the words were sung, their meaning and depth made a new and deep impression on me:

“Hallelujahs”
by Chris Rice
A purple sky to close the day
I wade the surf where dolphins play
The taste of salt, the dance of waves
And my soul wells up with hallelujahs

A lightning flash, my pounding heart
A breaching whale, a shooting star
Give testimony that you are
And my soul wells up with hallelujahs

Oh praise Him all His mighty works
There is no language where you can’t be heard
Your song goes out to all the Earth
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

O cratered moon and sparrow’s wings
O thunder’s boom and Saturn’s rings
Unveil our Father as you sing
And my soul wells up with hallelujahs

Oh praise Him all His mighty works
There is no language where you can’t be heard
Your song goes out to all the Earth
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

The pulse of life within my wrist
A fallen snow, a rising mist
There is no higher praise than this
And my soul wells up
O my soul wells up
Yes my soul wells up with hallelujahs

Oh praise Him all His mighty works
There is no language where you can’t be heard
Your song goes out to all the Earth
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

O hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Go to http://www.chrisrice.com/articles.php?id=10 to read an interesting story written by Chris Rice about this very song being heard on CNN as it was broadcast from a space shuttle flight.

Giving thanks

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Giving thanks is something I need to do on a regular basis, not just around the Thanksgiving holiday. Let me start, then, with the following list. I am thankful for:

  • My family, especially my wife and my children
  • The knowledge that God loves me in spite of myself
  • A comfortable house to live in
  • A good job
  • Many good friends
  • A good cup of coffee (the stronger, the better)
  • The Thanksgiving holiday
  • A car that works
  • Chlorox wipes (I wonder what we did without them?)
  • iTunes
  • My health
  • Hugs and kisses that my children regularly give me
  • The words, “I love you, Dad”
  • Digital cameras and camcorders
  • Flickr
  • Google products and services (most of them, anyway)
  • Forgiveness of others
  • Many good and happy memories

I know, some of these are pretty silly and others are mundane. But there it is: a start.