Friday, March 30, 2012
About love, relationship and more from Andy Stanley's sermons
The New Rules for Love, Sex & Dating
Stay in love
This One Thing
Taking Responsibility for Your Life
Time of Your Life
I Owe Who
Comparison Trap
Guardrails
Places I Have Heard the Ocean
Places I Have Heard the Ocean
to my ear — though I'm told
this is the sound of my own
blood. I have heard the ocean
in the city: cars against
the beach of our street. Or in
the subway, waiting for a train
that carries me like a current.
In my bed: place of high and low
tide or in my daughter's skates,
rolling over the sidewalk.
Ocean in the trees when they
fill their heads with wind.
Ocean in the rise and fall:
lungs of everyone I love.
"Places I Have Heard the Ocean" by Faith Shearin, from Moving the Piano. © Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2011. Reprinted with permission.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Correct/Advice: give as an act of love, receive as an act of being wise
In a peer group, such as members of a lab or students of a class, it is easy to directly point out others‘ mistakes. The corrections usually aim for specific things with clearly right or wrong answers. There is not much emotion involved in corrections in such peer group scenarios. People are not likely to take the corrections personally.
But, when it comes to correct someone or give advice, especially someone close to you, correction becomes a delicate art. In a house, corrections and advice are to be given in an act of caring for them in the hope that they may realize their mistakes and follow your advice without getting hurt; corrections and good advice are to be received and followed in an act of seeking to be wise and grow in understanding.
Before giving advice, we have to check whether advice is needed. Sometimes, we do not need to give advice, instead, we should just show love. When a wife complains about problems she has or people she meets, she often is just looking for comfort rather than advice. However, the husband tends to give advice when he hears a problem. The husband's "too quick to give advice" often causes the wife feel hurt, thus the husband's advice is not appreciated. To avoid that, the husband should first give understanding and comfort, then check whether advice is needed before finally give the advice; while the wife should state clearly whether she is looking for comfort or advice before the complains.
If we see our beloved ones making mistakes, we should correct them but only in a humble way. We should be careful about the words we use for the correction. Only those for building up should be spoken. Even when our beloved ones disagree with us and do not appreciate our corrections, we should control our temper and not to quarrel with them. When being corrected or corrections being rejected, women are more sensitive and get hurt feelings which could easily lead to arguments. So women should be extra careful in giving correction/advice as well as receiving correction/advice.
Likewise, we should not be quick to reject any advice, and always willing to listen to and follow good advice which will make us wise. This means that we sometimes have to swallow our pride and receive the corrections humbly. It is better to live with the temporal humiliation than regrets.
Let us give correction/advice as an act of love. Let us receive correction/advice as an act of being wise.
But, when it comes to correct someone or give advice, especially someone close to you, correction becomes a delicate art. In a house, corrections and advice are to be given in an act of caring for them in the hope that they may realize their mistakes and follow your advice without getting hurt; corrections and good advice are to be received and followed in an act of seeking to be wise and grow in understanding.
Before giving advice, we have to check whether advice is needed. Sometimes, we do not need to give advice, instead, we should just show love. When a wife complains about problems she has or people she meets, she often is just looking for comfort rather than advice. However, the husband tends to give advice when he hears a problem. The husband's "too quick to give advice" often causes the wife feel hurt, thus the husband's advice is not appreciated. To avoid that, the husband should first give understanding and comfort, then check whether advice is needed before finally give the advice; while the wife should state clearly whether she is looking for comfort or advice before the complains.
If we see our beloved ones making mistakes, we should correct them but only in a humble way. We should be careful about the words we use for the correction. Only those for building up should be spoken. Even when our beloved ones disagree with us and do not appreciate our corrections, we should control our temper and not to quarrel with them. When being corrected or corrections being rejected, women are more sensitive and get hurt feelings which could easily lead to arguments. So women should be extra careful in giving correction/advice as well as receiving correction/advice.
Likewise, we should not be quick to reject any advice, and always willing to listen to and follow good advice which will make us wise. This means that we sometimes have to swallow our pride and receive the corrections humbly. It is better to live with the temporal humiliation than regrets.
Let us give correction/advice as an act of love. Let us receive correction/advice as an act of being wise.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
How much can we trust our memories?
The book Remembering Satan made my jaw drop literally, in which the author Lawrence Wright describes the bizarre case of Paul Ingram, a Washington State deputy sheriff, who was accused by his daughters of sexual abuse and of belonging to a satanic cult.
The stories started with Paul Ingram being arrested because of accusations from his daughters Ericka and Julie of sexual abuse. Followed by some unprofessional interrogations from his colleagues, Paul recovered several memories of molesting his daughters while in trance, implicating two fellow deputies participating in those raping and sexual abuses. At the same time, Paul's daughters produced new disturbing memories of participating satanic practices with their whole family and other members of the sheriff's department, which involved killing babies, raping women, and child cannibalism.
In the irrational and hysterical wave of "Satanic Panic", which resulted in numerous investigations/trials of people accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) in 1980s in the US, the case of Ingram was going craze. Because Paul Ingram originally plead guilty and recovered memories corresponding to his daughters' accusations. This case has been claimed to be the proof of the existence of SRA, although Ingram's recovered memories lacked evidence and consistency and almost no evidence of any SRA has ever been found.
To make the case more complex, psychologist Richard Ofshe did a little experiment to Paul Ingram, which he implanted a false memory to Ingram. Even after Ofshe told Ingram that the detailed memory Ingram recovered actually never happened, Ingram insisted that it felt so true to him. Based on this experiment, Ofshe claimed that Ingram was inadvertently hypnotized and the confessions were the result of false memories being implanted with suggestions by authority figures who conducted his interrogation.
As Freud abandoned his seduction theory and concluded that the memories of sexual abuse were in fact imaginary fantasies, while some psychologists have shown that it is possible to implant false memories in individuals, it is possible to doubt the validity of the recovered memories of sexual abuses of Paul Ingram, his daughters, and later his wife.
At the end of my reading, the truth behind the case of Paul Ingram becomes more blurring than ever. It even made me start doubting my own memories, especially those related to my childhood.
I have an memory of a vivid picture that our family were sending off my uncle to join the army. In that memory, I was on my mother's lap seeing that my uncle had his stuff packed on his back waving goodbye to us. When I was little, I claimed that I remembered that scene. I refused to admit it being false memory even my mother told me that is almost impossible because my uncle left the year when I was born.
Now, I realize that it is very much possible that I came up that memory based on some books I read or TV show I watched. That memory is likely my fantasy rather than a fact. Then, how much can we trust our own memories? How much differences between the facts and the memories?
The stories started with Paul Ingram being arrested because of accusations from his daughters Ericka and Julie of sexual abuse. Followed by some unprofessional interrogations from his colleagues, Paul recovered several memories of molesting his daughters while in trance, implicating two fellow deputies participating in those raping and sexual abuses. At the same time, Paul's daughters produced new disturbing memories of participating satanic practices with their whole family and other members of the sheriff's department, which involved killing babies, raping women, and child cannibalism.
In the irrational and hysterical wave of "Satanic Panic", which resulted in numerous investigations/trials of people accused of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) in 1980s in the US, the case of Ingram was going craze. Because Paul Ingram originally plead guilty and recovered memories corresponding to his daughters' accusations. This case has been claimed to be the proof of the existence of SRA, although Ingram's recovered memories lacked evidence and consistency and almost no evidence of any SRA has ever been found.
To make the case more complex, psychologist Richard Ofshe did a little experiment to Paul Ingram, which he implanted a false memory to Ingram. Even after Ofshe told Ingram that the detailed memory Ingram recovered actually never happened, Ingram insisted that it felt so true to him. Based on this experiment, Ofshe claimed that Ingram was inadvertently hypnotized and the confessions were the result of false memories being implanted with suggestions by authority figures who conducted his interrogation.
As Freud abandoned his seduction theory and concluded that the memories of sexual abuse were in fact imaginary fantasies, while some psychologists have shown that it is possible to implant false memories in individuals, it is possible to doubt the validity of the recovered memories of sexual abuses of Paul Ingram, his daughters, and later his wife.
At the end of my reading, the truth behind the case of Paul Ingram becomes more blurring than ever. It even made me start doubting my own memories, especially those related to my childhood.
I have an memory of a vivid picture that our family were sending off my uncle to join the army. In that memory, I was on my mother's lap seeing that my uncle had his stuff packed on his back waving goodbye to us. When I was little, I claimed that I remembered that scene. I refused to admit it being false memory even my mother told me that is almost impossible because my uncle left the year when I was born.
Now, I realize that it is very much possible that I came up that memory based on some books I read or TV show I watched. That memory is likely my fantasy rather than a fact. Then, how much can we trust our own memories? How much differences between the facts and the memories?
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Good points about scientific writing
In Richard Preston's introduction for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007, I found some good points about scientific writing.
- Writing is linear, proceeding from one word to the next; one of the tricks in science and nature writing, which works well in certain kind of pieces but is a hard trick to get right, is the delicate process of managing the line of prose as it moves from exposition to narrative back to exposition again. Technically, when you break a narrative to explain something, it's called a "set piece." The name tells what it does. It sits there, providing reader with explanation of something. If you put too much narrative in a piece of writing about science, without enough exposition, the reader won't see the reason for the narrative. But if you start a narrative and then hang too much exposition on it, the exposition ends up as a load of wet laundry hanging on the line, and it drags the narrative down to the ground.
- Another thing I relish is clear exposition of an important idea, especially if it's counterintuitive, challenging, controversial, or hasn't been presented in such a way before. Here we don't need narrative or character, what we need is a good argument. "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check," in Scientific American, by Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala, who are both working scientists, has a quiet but strong voice and a good raison d'etre. The authors ask the straightforward question, How, practically speaking, can the world reduce carbon emissions? If we know the climate is warming up because of human-caused carbon emissions, then if we begin acting right now, what can we do to reduce carbon emissions, and how effective will is be? In a straightforward, persuasive set of arguments, Socolow and Pacala show that carbon emissions can be lowered, and it can have a major effect.
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