From Braiding Hair to the Tapestry of Human History

My five year old daughter, Fiona, recently decided that she was going to have to send me to hair-braiding school. This decision didn't come from out of the blue. Fiona and her sister have bore the brunt of all my struggles with tending little girls' hair. During my time as a single dad, they were regularly dropped off at preschool with huge knots on the top of their head. When I did manage to get the tangles straightened out, their pony tails usually pointed in the wrong direction and barely had the staying power to make it through the beginning of the morning.

Thankfully, my wife handles the majority of  the hair issues in our house now.  That is almost entirely a good thing, except for the fact that Fiona's hair expectations have increased dramatically. Where my little princess used to be happy with half-cocked pony tail, now she expect full braids. Unfortunately, my hair tying skills remain bleak, similar to my knot-tying skills in the military and tie-tying skills in the corporate world. I'm lucking to keep one out of two of my own shoes tied.

Despite my inadequacies, I do appreciate the physics of hair braiding. The over-and-through of a braid combines force against force. Using the power of one series of strands to secure and bind another series. The binders, become the bound, and then bind again. Each comes from a different direction, a different position, yet is essential to the creation of the whole. The combination of the series of strands working together to create something more strong and beautiful than they could be alone.

While hair braiding evades me, I've learned a lot of other lessons through the process of being a father. One of the most interesting lessons is how pre-programmed every human being is straight from the womb. Good parenting, a safe environment and schooling is important; but there's no denying that a certain amount of temperament is just born in. Dr. Jerome Kagan's research team at Harvard University developed some of the strongest research in this field, particularly as it applies to people with highly reactive anxious temperaments. Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts expands on Dr. Kagan's theories to explain how people with inborn introverted characters play essential roles in our society - roles traditionally can't be filled by people with a more outgoing and exuberant nature.

In a similar but different direction, Dr. Nassir Ghaemi's book, A First-Rate Madness, makes a strong argument that leaders who live with depression or bipolar disorder are essential during times of crisis because of the slightly different way that their brains perceive the world. Winston Churchill credited his depression with allowing him to understand the threat that Hitler posed when Neville Chamberlain did not. Dr. Ghaemi points to President Lincoln, Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. as other examples of leaders' with depressive viewpoints that changed the course of the world.

Each individual is born with our own temperament, intellect, strengths, and weaknesses. Like strands in a braid, we interact with each others observations and viewpoint. This mix of religions, cultures and philosophies forms the tapestry of human history. It's a exacerbating and sometimes painful process whether the interactions are occurring in our homes, at work, or half way across the world; but it essential to fulfilling Creation.

While I'm fascinated by the psychological, anthropological, and evolutionary descriptions of this process; my personal favorite overall description of the human condition, our interactions with each other, and the goal of those interactions will always be from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for their is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

Matthew 5:3-12.


Note: Check out Susan Cain's Ted Talk to learn more about about inborn temperament and the power of introverts.

Dark Night: What An Incredible Time to Be Alive

Helena, Montana's night opens up from my doorstep. Inside the door, the girls have gone to bed and the house is quiet. Outside, the sky is dark. Stars glitter and the moon beams through scattered clouds. An airplane passes overhead. Church bells ring through the chill air.

The porch looks out over Last Chance Gulch, the heart of the miner's camp that grew into a state capitol.  A fire tower stands on the other side of the gulch, a relic of fires that marred the town's early days. Cars pass beneath it. Lovers coming home from a date. Wild ones heading out to the bars.

I see the homes of the rich and government-subsidized housing. There is police station and county jail , along with a library, my daughter's preschool, and a number of businesses and  and a state office building. To the south, the buildings give way to the mountains and pines of the Helena National Forest.

There are grander views in this state, in this town, and even on my block; but this view captures me every time. From this porch, I see the past giving way to the future. Good tugging against evil. Nature pushing back against civilization. Knowledge overcoming ignorance. It's impossible not to get lost in the grandeur of all that humanity.

The Catholic martyr Oscar Romero said, "God and human beings make history." What incredible glory and responsibility lie in those simple words. Each human being acts as a water molecule in the divine river of history. Each sacred. Each essential. Each a part of something greater. Each called to use our God-given abilities to serve our fellow human beings (1 Peter 4:10 "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.")

We've been chosen to participate in a pretty incredible part of history. According to the United Nations, there are over 7 billion people living on the planet today. There were only 4 billion in the mid-1970's when I was born. Those 7 billion people are connected in ways that could not have been imagined even fifteen years ago.

From a numbers perspective, we get to play the game of history while there are more chips on the table than there ever has been before. The stakes are higher. We are going to face resource constraints and health issues of epic proportions. More people will say "I'm hungry" and "I'm sick" over the course of the next few decade than ever have combined during the span human existence. To top that off, we are living in a world full of weapons that could kill us all several times over. The challenges are real and terrifying.

Yet, each of those crises will present an incredible opportunity for us to serve each other and it's never been easier to do good. We can punch in five digits in our phone and donate a meal for a family of refugees halfway across the world. We can spread a message of hope and faith to hundreds, even thousand of people in an instant. We can serve our families, our communities and the world in ways our ancestors couldn't even have dreamed of.

What an incredible time to be chosen to be alive.


NOTE: The Kindle version of Looking for Answers Through Dirty Glasses: Finding the Divine in a Challenging World is only 99 cents on Amazon or free if you're a member of Amazon Prime. I hope you like it.