Brief hiatus

I need to take a few days off from blogging. Back soon.

Mea culpa

I messed up. Several months ago.

The exact nature of that is open for debate.

I can't remember if it was October or November, but the occasion was a teacher development class at church.

It was a very small thing in the class, but the person leading it was making an analogy about how you learn from mistakes, making them important opportunities. 

I totally believe that.

On a bit more emotional note, he threw in this example of college students getting something wrong and then disputing their grade, arguing that they should not have been marked down rather than taking the opportunity to learn.

I can believe that happens, thought that mainly comes from stories I have heard about helicopter parents.

Where he lost me was referring to it as "the weaponization of Title IX"; that part did not seem right.

Title IX of the Education Amendment is the section that forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.

Based on when I was growing up and becoming aware of it, I mostly associated it with funding for sports teams, but of course it could also apply to admissions and school conditions.  

I could not quite see how that would be used for appeals on grades. The way he described it did not make it sound like it was only girls doing it. 

(I have a vague sense he mainly imagined non-white students doing it, but that could be me making assumptions. The helicopter parents tend to be pretty white.)

I didn't say anything at the time. That was partly that I have a preference for calling in versus calling out, but also by the time I was done processing that in my mind things had moved on. 

I can think quickly, but it still takes time to go over different angles. I kept looking for ways in which what he said might have made sense, but did not come up with any.

At that point, I decided to do some more looking when I got home; the moment had passed anyway.

I did find some references searching on the phrase "weaponization of Title IX". What came up then is that some schools use it to require a level of pursuit in reports of sexual assault that might seem like it is protective of women but actually discourages reporting because it is so invasive and unhelpful.

I don't think that's what he meant.

Searching now brings up more about keeping transgender people out of sports and not supporting transgender students, especially against their parents' wishes.

Still not what he meant, I am pretty sure.

I may have been wrong for not speaking up then, but at the time I was going to write him a nice letter briefly touching on what Title IX is, that it wouldn't apply in that situation, and that it is important to speak correctly. 

I was definitely not going to say that you sound stupid if you just parrot things that you hear on talk radio, because maybe it's really that his wife works with someone who listens to talk radio and it was like a third-hand parroting.

Then I just didn't get to it. There was always so much to do and I am always running behind. Months later it would just be weird.

I definitely shouldn't procrastinate, but also, maybe I should have said something then. Maybe it would have been important for the other people in the room. There could have been fourth and fifth hand parroting for all I know. 

I hope not, but I don't know. 

I can resolve to do better next time, but I am still not completely sure what would have been better this time. 

What you can feel

Happy Easter!

I just shared a really discouraging link, so I have a certain sense of irony about saying "Happy Easter", but I say it anyway. 

After all, I do have faith, and this is a time when we remember that.

I believe that Jesus Christ was the literal son of God, sent to redeem us from sin and death.

My ability to hope comes from that.

I believe that no matter how easy it is to be skeptical, it is possible to obtain witnesses and spiritual knowledge. If that previous statement seems a little bold, that's okay. If you are interested in knowing, it is possible.

I want to affirm that for anyone weighed down with dread or grief, but my primary reason for writing it has more to do with people who are theoretically believers but with inconsistencies in their conduct.

I just want to point out a few things.

Alma 7:12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels will be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

That sounds like empathy. It certainly shows intention to help and willingness to sacrifice to do so.

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

That's pretty straightforward.

We see terrible abuses happening. The constant thread I see is dehumanization. People keep insisting that the people being sent to El Salvador are gang members who would slice you open. They are repeating a lie, but even if it were true, that would still not justify the lack of due process nor sending to another country that they have never been to nor the existence of prisons that are such hell holes.

RFK Jr made increasing autism diagnoses a threat by giving a very narrow definition of autism which is inaccurate; if we only defined autism that way, the number of diagnoses would not have changed. 

Besides which, the people with the most severe cases have value, and some cases might not look so severe with adequate resources. Because of the dehumanization it becomes easier to remove the resources and to get people to embrace the spread of easily preventable diseases.

For a long time it seemed like the cruelty was mostly in pursuit of profit. I suppose there is an argument that creating chaos will allow more consolidation of profit and power, but it sure looks like cruelty has become an end goal.

If you are going to profess Christ in any way at all, you do not get to cheer the cruelty. You need to be actively fighting it.

Our care for each other is going to be how we survive. 

What you can see

One other thing about that event for wealth-management customers...

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2025/03/retirement-and-responsibility.html

My source said that she was the only fat person there.

"That's because you were the only poor person there."

"I don't like what you're saying!"

I am completely aware that there are thin poor people and fat wealthy people. In general, the wealthier you are the more likely you are to align with worldly beauty standards, including those related to body weight.

There are some factors that seem to offer some explanation, like food deserts or the body entering famine mode, but I suspect there are other factors that we don't understand at this time.

In this case, fat acts as one more factor to help someone feel out of place when they are not in their own financial class. Of course, fat can help people to feel awkward and unworthy on multiple levels.

One direction I thought about going this week was a long list of scriptures about giving to the poor and not trying to think about whether they deserve it or not. I may still do that. 

The overall point I am going with this week is that there are things (which as a group we might refer to as dominator culture) that we use as cues about what someone deserves.

It can be very easy to assume that someone is lazy or stupid or undeserving when we see that they are fat or know that they are poor, and especially if they are poor and fat; how gross is that?

I am aware that it can appear self-serving for me in this case, as someone who is both poor and fat.

I have definitely been the person who has been ashamed and angry at myself for both of those things. 

Having reached a point where I understand that they are not my fault or judgments on my character doesn't suddenly make everything else easy. 

I hope it has made me more compassionate toward others.

Part of that means giving more to others, but another part of it is not just wanting the guillotine for those whose greed causes mounting damage. I don't necessarily respect their status, and I will vote against them politically, but getting hung up on the anger or contempt isn't really the answer. 

Trying to keep all of that in mind, where choices do matter but where there are things that are not a matter of choice -- at least not individual choice, maybe collective choice -- but you still need to live in a way that you can live with yourself... that's a lot.

That is not the only reason I mention all of this, especially that opening story.

Current ascendancy of white supremacy aside, we had been at a point where even if people still had racist attitudes, they were still reluctant to voice them out loud. They might still think that there were issues with the absence of fathers or the influence of rap music, and expect those factors to be in play when they see someone with darker skin, but they still wouldn't say that Black people are less intelligent and Asian people are more intelligent or anything in those terms. That was so racist as to be vulgar.

(I really hate that we have lost ground there.)

However, there were other things that were still acceptable.

For example, you had a lot of gay people be fine with the oppression of transgender people. They are going to find that affecting their own rights too.

Lots of married women were okay with voting for a sex offender and letting single women be mocked. They may find voting harder.

Canadians are supposed to be all liberal and lovely, but if you look into MAID you will see a lot of ableism and some classism where it is eugenics all over again and makes it hard to forgot that a lot of the methods Nazis used to kill Jews were first tried on disabled people.

It may seem that for all of these issues, fatphobia and fat-shaming are way down at the bottom of the list. 

Maybe, but remember that it is tied in with class and economic level. 

Remember that it can be tied in with disability.

Most of all, remember that accepting any part of dominator culture allows it to establish a foothold that can be converted to a stampede with shocking speed.

You can argue that the progress we had made against racism was superficial, but that shouldn't make the latest election results and trends any less disturbing.

As long as you are willing to dismiss a group of people based on a trait -- any trait -- then it is dehumanization.

We must not leave any room for that. 

Giving bravely

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. -- C.S. Lewis

It is not surprising that at this time of economic chaos, various people (e.g. Suze Orman, Trump) are referring to it as a good time to get rich.

I have said that there are reasons to not look to me for financial advice, but this is something I have said pretty frequently: stock collapses and market downturns and bad things tend to benefit those who can afford to wait it out.

I don't count that as financial advice because I have no idea what it's like to be able to wait things out. I suspect most of my readers don't either.

There are some things that I do know, though they are much more matters of faith than finance.

Caring for my mother for the time I did pretty much destroyed me financially, but I do not regret it. I know it was the right thing to do for that time.

I know that in some ways unexpected and surprising, I am still hanging on with food and shelter and even fun.

I know that there are many times when I feel compelled to give money that seems scary to give. I don't tell people what I have given -- not because of injunctions against giving to be seen of men but because I imagine I would get disbelief and criticism and anger for doing so. 

I do it because it feels necessary and so far it has worked out. 

Not long ago I read a conference talk from October 2017, "The Heart of the Widow" by O. Vincent Haleck.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2017/10/the-heart-of-the-widow?lang=eng

He referred to the story of the widow's mite, saying "The quality and depth of her love and faith were such that she gave knowing that her 'want' would be supplied."  

I rebelled against that a little; did she really know that her want would be supplied? Or was it more that she just felt that she should and must do it?

Maybe it is all of the above. 

Last week I did not advise you to cash out your 401K, or to not buy a McMansion even when it is in your price range, or to change your vacations from nice hotels to camping.

I cannot know what your wants and needs are, or your abilities.

I do believe that we can be led. I believe in the importance of that.

Maybe sometimes we are led to give to someone just because we are there and because we can, but sometimes we might be the only one who can assist with that particular need.

My larger fear is that while there might be many people who could assist, that they won't, and are not even considering that they could.

I won't deny that a lot of it is scary. One thing that I was getting at in last week's post, though, is that often when we are not generous, fear of not having enough is at the root.

If we are going to have to be afraid anyway, perhaps we should feel that fear in the cause of generosity and liberality. 

Retirement and responsibility

This one has been bothering me since December.

Someone I know was invited to a wreath-making class, given by the friend's investment firm.

The firm has events regularly, but he had not been in the habit of going, let alone bringing a guest. Since he pays them $100,000 annually to manage his investments, he was trying to start taking advantage of it.

It took me back at the time; my total earnings in any year of my life have been less than half of that. Finding out that someone makes that amount is one thing, but that an annual expense is that amount is a little mind-boggling.

While that world is beyond me, I do know some rules of investing and things like minimum yields and such for it to be worthwhile, especially given the expense of having someone handle it for you. 

He has to have more than $2 million. I would say considerably more. 

That is actually in line with what would be recommended, especially considering that he is not that far from retirement age.

I also happen to know that he is likely to inherit significant wealth at some point. His investment strategy may be more aggressive than needed, but that is his money, and his choice.

It still bothers me. 

One reason is that I had recently read that paying a homeless person $750 a month for one year generally gets them off the streets. Things like being able to pay for housing application fees and deposit and first and last month's rent, maybe being able to update some clothing... those things work in a way that shelters don't. Maybe the key is personal autonomy.

Now, I don't know if that would hold true everywhere. Oregon specifically has such a housing shortage that it might take more money and certainly more housing. However, I can't help but think about other things that $100,000 annually could do.

It is considered very irresponsible not to plan for retirement. Paying into Social Security all one's life does not count because that's not how rich people do it, and rich people are really anxious to plunder it. That's only because of greed, but greed messes up a lot of things.

However, I also know of people who planned to travel during their retirement, but then the wife had to go with her second husband, because the first one died. Or the man was going to be very comfortable with his second wife, because really it was all his and why shouldn't he get someone younger? 

Or knees went bad. There's a lot to be said for traveling when you are younger and more energetic.

There are a lot of reasons to fear not having enough, but the "wise" strategies can't guarantee the results you want. 

If you are rich enough, eventually a stock market crash will rebound and you will end up with even more. If you are not rich enough to wait it out, it's a completely different story.

People with stock portfolios and contributing the max to their 401Ks are not as much the problem as billionaires addicted to grabbing up more of the available resources. However, what part is ours? 

What part of the damage are we contributing to?

What good can we do that we aren't doing? 

Facing up to it

Someone I know posted this week about giving away some food downtown and thinking that maybe they should always have some extra food when they go.

I have recently been through a similar process and so am totally in sympathy with that.

Someone else felt differently, though they didn't want to come right out and say it that way.

This person lives in another city, so there can be different dynamics.

They wrote about it as a safety matter for the employees of their bake shop. Their safety measures are not giving away anything or talking to the unhoused in the area. They don't want to encourage that presence.

She did mention her shop being in an upscale area.

One thing I found very interesting was that she talked about them donating to other charities that meet the homeless where they are. I can see the value in that, but it sounds like you are actually trying to get the people away from where they are to somewhere else.

You can talk about safety issues, but in general homeless people are more likely to be in danger than to be a danger. Sure, there are always exceptions, but overall it seems like there were many reasons given defensively but not accurately. It seems most likely that they don't want to have to look at the results of an economic system that grinds people down once they start falling behind.

I mean, you wouldn't want to start thinking that everything that you have may not be deserved.

I'm just going to put this here:

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/september/HomelessQandA.html 

I promise that as I write about getting to the point where we have no poor among us, not every single post will be about homelessness.

It will come up a lot. It may be the most visible sign of our failures, as well as the one we put the most effort into not seeing. 

I used to hear it all the time: Don't give them money; they'll just spend it on drugs or alcohol. If you really want to help them give it to a shelter.

I also remember many years ago that the guy who was operating Baloney Joe's was a predator, that more recently Salvation Army is  terrible to gay people, and that people have picked up lice and diseases and had their medications stolen at shelters.

I don't want to be critical of shelters or the people who work in them. I know there are people doing good work and they are trying to do something that is very hard. 

I also know that sometimes it is great to have choices.

I know that in their determination not to give, some people will avoid any eye contact or acknowledgment of humanity. I know that so much dehumanization takes a toll.

This is a better approach:

https://facinghomelessness.org/

In addition, I believe that constantly looking away gets us into a state where we believe that it is not our problem, allowing us to disconnect.

Moreover, sometimes when people see problems that they can't solve, as illogical as it is they develop hostility to the people suffering from the problem.

This is not the time to look away. This is not the time to rely on the systems already in place.

We can work with those systems and check in with them. Maybe you can pick up some volunteer shifts or go to an informational meeting... there are a lot of options. 

Regardless -- and remember that this is primarily a religious blog -- if we want to be God's people we cannot turn away from the poor.

Related posts: 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2025/02/one-story.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/help-someone.html