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< Back Consultants Wanted-Join Our Team Nov 29, 2022 Our goal: Heal the World! Our strategy: Think differently! Our tactic: Point! We don’t teach, debate, argue, or persuade; we just point. We show the world as it really is, not as it’s been pre-packaged for us on Madison Avenue, in Harvard Square, and by Hollywood. We point, and we rely on the world to do the rest. Check us out: www.aletheiatoday.com . “We’d all love to change the world.” (The Beatles) You can! If you have mad skills in any of these areas, join us: Branding, Social Media, Data Analytics, Curriculum Development (for secondary schools), Revenue Generation (advertising and/or ecommerce), Website Enhancement . Aletheia Today™ (AT) publishes Aletheia Today Magazine™ (ATM) 8 times a year and Thoughts While Shaving™ (TWS) twice-weekly, both online. We foster the ongoing convergence of science, philosophy, theology, culture, and spirituality in the 21st century. Do you share our commitment to promoting intellectual convergence in our increasingly fragmented world? Join us! Pay: As we are growing, compensation will necessarily be modest. So, we welcome consultants looking for a side hustle to their regular day job and are open to pay negotiation. Still interested? Sendus a short note telling us why you might want to join our team and what specific skills you would bring to our enterprise. PLEASE, NO RESUMEES. Email us at editor@aletheiatoday.com . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Groundhog Day David Cowles Jan 31, 2023 “You are not Joey...there are no magic kingdoms in your future. No, you are face-to-face with the darkest days of winter.” December 25, Christmas Day. We’ve been looking forward to it for months and it didn’t disappoint: presents and ribbons and trees and presents, Mall Santa and Real Santa and carols and cookies, and…did I mention presents? Later that afternoon, since you’ve successfully resisted your spouse’s (or parent’s) repeated pleas to help clean up, you find yourself with nothing to do. In fact, you’re bored…bored on Christmas! Is that even a thing? While you’re speculating on the metaphysics of boredom, you happen to look out the window… And it’s dark, real dark, the windowpane’s ice cold. The ground is frozen solid, if not snow covered, and you suddenly realize you have nothing to look forward to now until spring (Easter) – not like Joey across the street whose parents take him skiing every weekend and whose grandparents are taking him to Disney World in February. You are not Joey! (How often do you have to remind yourself of that each year?) No, you do not have to face ski lodges, hot cider and cocoa, and there are no magic kingdoms in your future. No, you are face-to-face with the darkest days of winter. Poor you! You happen to live in a liturgically impoverished culture. We celebrate just four points on the calendar: the two solstices (c. 6/21 and 12/21), days of maximum (or minimum) daylight; and the two equinoxes (c. 3/21 and 9/21), days when the durations of light and dark are equal. Think of that! At equinox, no matter where you live on the globe, north or south, pole or equator, the sun rises at 6 AM and sets at 6 PM (adjusted for the modern convention of time zones). It’s a marvelous thing. But I digress… Like most cultures, we cluster our important religious and secular holidays around the times of these astronomical extremes; we call them Christmas, Easter, Midsommer (July 4 th ), and various ‘early harvest’ festivals. But none of this relieves the tedium of long cold winters. Had you been born into a liturgically richer culture, you might be celebrating eight points on the calendar rather than just four. Many cultures recognize what we call Cross Days as major feasts. Cross Days occur, roughly, on the days that bisect the four intervals between solstice and equinox. Although our culture doesn’t recognize these Cross Days as ‘major feasts’, their shadows are still all around us. Halloween, for example, bisects the fall equinox and the winter solstice. Similarly, May Day in the spring. The remaining axis (2/1 and 8/1) is a bit more problematic. Lammas Day, August 1, is celebrated in the Celtic and Jewish traditions. February 2 is celebrated in Celtic tradition as Imbolc (Lambs’ Day, also St. Brigid’s Day), in Christian tradition as Candlemas (the presentation of Jesus in the temple), and in secular tradition as Groundhog Day . You know the story. The groundhog emerges from his hole and assesses prospects for the coming weeks. If he sees his shadow, then it’s back underground for another six weeks of winter; but if he doesn’t, then get ready for an early spring. Call it what you will, February 2 is a pivot point in the celestial calendar. It occurs right in the middle of the darkest, coldest period in the North American almanac. It is a time when hope is in short supply. We need something to keep us going. (Teacher friends of mine say that February is by far the hardest month for class management .) Are we there yet? No, but we are halfway. February 2 marks the end of the end and the beginning of the beginning. If nothing else, it delivers a psychological boost. We’re desperate for good news. We hope that the Groundhog will deliver but, if not, we’ve still enjoyed his festival. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Journey to the Cross Is Our Journey Too Deborah Rutherford Is the journey to the Cross our stairway to Heaven? We need to be reminded of the promise of Jesus from the cradle to the grave to Heaven because not only has Jesus saved us in this life, but his death and Resurrection changed the course of mankind's eternal destiny. It is here where we find Heaven's celestial stairs. Reflect on the one (Holy) week that changed the world. The week started with joy and praise and ended with Jesus on the Cross—every moment from innocence to betrayal to shouts of crucify him—nails hammering, blood spilling, thorns tearing, linen hanging, and women weeping as the sky darkened. The earth quaked, the temple rumbled as the veil tore, and God in the flesh died a human death. Imagine the sorrow of Jesus' mother, disciples, and followers. It was as if all creation held its breath for three days, which is what it is like today, isn't it? We have Good Friday, and while we may be finalizing weekend plans or at a lunch spot with friends, we feel the gravity of God's love for us. Then, on Saturday, we wait, and although we are planning our menus, preparing Easter baskets, or dying eggs, we know what this Saturday really is. It is the day that we wait. We wait in anticipation as our sorrow turns into joy, like the night before Christmas (we know what is coming). We will run to the tomb with Mary on Sunday morning and find it empty. Envision running into Jesus as he asked, "Why do you weep. I have risen." When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" John 20:11-13 NKJV Not only was Jesus, the disciples' best friend, whom they loved, gone, but what of all Jesus' teachings? What were they supposed to do? How could they continue? The wonderful thing about Jesus is He never leaves us alone to figure these things out. Just as Jesus showed up to the women outside the tomb, doubting Thomas and on the road to Emmaus, He shows up to us when we need Him. And that is what the Holy Days are. We intimately get in touch with the awe and wonder of our God, who loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us. To make a way for us, to bring us home forever. Jesus is forever. Our Salvation is forever. This is not a passing conversation, a decade, or even a lifetime. This is an eternal commitment. The Holy Days of Christmas transform into the Holy Days of the Resurrection. Our joyfulness is uncontainable because Jesus has risen. Hallelujah shouts across the heavens. Glory be to God in the highest. All creation sings jubilantly for the poor dying, unfallen world no longer must die. God is not one to do the normal — Always doing the unexpected, like being born from a virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14). (Although it was expected by God, who prophesied Christ's coming down to the last detail.) Dying on the Cross—again, it was prophesized (Psalm 31:5), but the Apostles did not expect it. Then Jesus rose from the dead, and although He said he would, no one expected it ( Matthew 17:22-23 ). This tells me that Jesus does more than I could ever expect or imagine. He is ever full of wonder, surprises, and unlimited delight. But we who live after the Resurrection can expect more resurrection power, the Second Coming. It is not will, or can it happen because the King is coming. We were never meant to live fallen — " Nicodemus said to Him [Jesus], "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (John 3:4) Can a baby be born again? Nicodemus asked Jesus, not grasping the miracle that would soon be. Not yet seeing the plan God had made and orchestrated since the garden when he told the cunning serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," (Genesis 3:15KJV). It has always been about you and me. Our innocence was stolen in the garden, our unfallen fell, and we are born into this world as fallen. But God has offered us a way to return to our innocence—a wonderful rescue plan. He would send an innocent, His son Jesus, an unblemished Lamb who would be slain for our sins. In Jesus's Resurrection, God makes a way for us to follow and return to innocence. When we trust Jesus as our Savior and step onto the Pilgrim's path back to our innocence, Savior, our God. One day, we will enter the unfallen garden, the new world, the celestial City, and sit at the feet of the Lamb. With Jesus, we get to live this every day—we live in Resurrection joy, in the safety and security of our Salvation. Our deliverance to the Holy City to unfallen Eden. As we walk through the Holy Days on our journey to the Cross, never forget God's love—sending His Son to die to make a way to bring us home. We were never meant to live forever unfallen; we were always meant to live unfallen with God himself. The journey to the Cross has everything to do with us because our Salvation is the most beautiful thing ever. What could be more exciting than celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus? Deborah Rutherford is a Christian wife who loves to write stories, devotionals, and poetry. She is also an award-winning makeup artist. Deborah shares her journey of faith, joy, and beauty on her blog at www.deborahrutherford.com and social media. She is a contributing writer for Aletheia Today Magazine , Kingdom Edge Magazine and Gracefully Truthful Ministries and has a devotional in the book “Shepherd on Duty: Promises of God you Can Trust ” (Arabelle Publishing) and the Calla Press, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Click the image to return to Spring 2024. Previous Next

< Back To Be…or Never to have Been David Cowles Jan 25, 2026 “I may be readily willing to sacrifice my own life experience, but I am much less ready to sacrifice yours. And so we continue on…” 2000 words, 8 minute read Hamlet only scratched the surface. He imagined that he had influence over life and death. Too late, sweet prince; that ship had sailed. Hamlet was already born, and there’s no erasing that…is there? Still, he asks good questions: should we nobly “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?” Is that a fair price to pay for long life? Or should we “take arms against a sea of troubles,” thereby placing our lives at heightened risk? Troubles only cease when we ‘sleep’, so our campaign against them can only end in death. “’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep…” “To sleep, perchance to dream – aye, there’s the rub.” Hamlet weighs the possibility that consciousness might survive the death of the material body. A decision to eschew the lure of long life opens up a range of behavioral options ranging from crusades against injustice, to risky personal behavior, to outright self-harm. Each of these lifestyle choices carries an enhanced risk of premature death but none of them has the power to annul our birth. A friend recently told me, “I don’t know if there is any continuation of consciousness after death, but if there is, I am sure that what happens in our current life influences whatever comes next.” On the one hand, my friend was proposing an outlandish theory for which there could be scant empirical evidence. On the other hand, he was expressing what turns out to be an almost baseline human belief. In our Western religious tradition, we call it Heaven and Hell. In the Eastern tradition, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana. Other traditions (Confucian, Abrahamic) imagine that we live on through our descendants and, perhaps, that the consequences of our vices and virtues are somehow visited on those latter generations. For the more material-minded among us (from Mill to Marx), we offer Utopia…your choice of a post-industrial techno-paradise or a return to the state of nature following a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And for the rest of us, there’s Estate Planning. Like most, Hamlet is concerned (1) that personal consciousness might extend beyond death, (2) that the nature and quality of such post mortem (PM) experience is unknown, and (3) that the content/conduct of our current lives might influence that quality. Like many, Hamlet elects to ‘play it safe’; he will not tempt fate. He will accept life as it comes (or doesn’t) but he’ll do nothing to accelerate his demise (contrast Ophelia). Practically speaking, Hamlet has only two choices, and he decides that the devil he knows is better than the devil he doesn’t. But philosophically, there is a third option: What if Hamlet could choose never to have been at all? No risk of nightmares now! Job got there 2500 years earlier, in the opening lines of his eponymous epic: “Let the day disappear, the day I was born, and the night that announced, ‘A man has been conceived’. As for that day, let it be darkness…Let darkness, ‘dead-darkness’ expunge it.” (3: 1-5) Job understands, intuitively of course, that once an ovum is fertilized by a sperm…or very shortly thereafter, the die so to speak is cast. There is no going back…unless I can resolve the Grandfather Paradox and kill the old coot before he can reproduce. A silly thought? Not at all! In fact, there is a school of thought that suggests that all our lives will ultimately be expunged…at the heat death of the cosmos. What we call ‘being’ is really just the existential track of a virtual particle in a virtual universe. But that is not what Job (or Hamlet) had in mind. I like to bet on Pro Football. At the beginning of each NFL season, I pick a few ‘underrated’ teams that I think might have a chance to go all the way. If the teams I pick are bad enough (think Jets), I can get outrageous odds. Typically, I’ll bet a whopping $25 on each such team. If any of my teams win, I stand to gain at least $1,000 and in some cases much more: just how bad are these teams? (Think Jets.) But if I happen to land on a ‘hot property’, as I did this year, the wins pile up as the season progresses. Superbowl buzz makes my $25 bet look like a work of pure genius, reminiscent some would say of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti. Suddenly, I am the hot property: “You stand to win $3,000 if your team goes the distance, but if they lose anywhere along the way, you get zero. I’ll give you $1,000, right now, no questions asked, for your betting slip.” Job has something even better in mind. He is proposing a type of poker where a player can fold at any time…and receive back 100% of what he’s bet so far on his hand. Extending the analogy, we can live our lives and then, at the end of it, decide whether to make it ‘real’ or not. But suppose Job has his way. Suppose God updates his design to allow creatures to retroactively erase their lives, their being, at any time. Gone is the accumulated suffering of the decades, gone is the prospect of an excruciating death, gone is the risk of nightmares. Of course, gone too are the pleasures and joys of life and their attendant memories, reveries, etc. We are conditioned to tell pollsters that the joys outweigh the sorrows. But do they really? Suppose you were born with a special button and told that you were free to push that button at any time but that pushing the button would not only result in immediate death but in retroactive death. It would be as if none of your life experiences had ever happened. Do you think you would have pushed that button by now? Would you ever push it? If so, when? Under what circumstances? To be clear, this is not suicide with its social stigma and its possibly adverse spiritual consequences. This is simply an ‘inalienable right’, conferred on every human being at conception (or shortly thereafter), either by God or by Thomas Jefferson – the right to retroactively opt out of existence at any time! After all, you did not ask to be born, you did not even consent to it. It only makes sense then that, upon attaining adulthood, you should have the right of self-determination, even retroactively. Nor is this ‘death’, this is simply ‘not-being’. To live, even for a short time, is to place oneself at almost unimaginable risk. Couple that with the periodic suffering visited on even the most charmed life and, honestly, it is hard to imagine anyone ever choosing life…for herself, or for anyone else. And yet, we’re constantly told that folks choose life every day: “I had good innings, what a gift, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” etc. But is that really how we feel or is it just what we’re expected to feel…or say? After all, how bad would you feel about yourself if you came to the end of your natural life only to decide on reflection that your life had not been worth living? Imagine telling your loved ones on your death bed that you wish you’d never been born? Fortunately, the human psyche protects us from such pain. We buck up. We put on a face for the faces that we meet (Eliot)…we put on a face for ourselves . What if the last thing we say to ourselves and the World is a lie? But I digress. The point is, nobody wants a button. At least, no one is willing to own up to wanting a button. Are there defensible, rational reasons for this? A co-worker was fond of saying, “Better days are coming!” They didn’t; he died. But his slightly sarcastic meme put a spotlight on something important, Hope : “There just has to be a pony underneath this pile of excrement; all I have to do is keep digging.” Hope is virtually omnipotent. It truly does seem to conquer all. But can we really be so naïve as that? And what is it we’re hoping for anyway? A winning Powerball ticket? Another Superbowl for New England? A cure for cancer? (One of the 10 best movies ever made is Truffaut’s 400 Blows . Spoiler alert : in the end the tween aged hero fulfills his ‘lifelong’ dream, then asks, with his eyes alone, the fundamental existential question, “Now what?”) All these things (above) are good in themselves but are any of them enough to justify the high cost of the buy-in (i.e. life with all its inevitable suffering and unavoidable risks) when the only sure thing is New England? But there is another factor: the other ! Every day we’ve been alive, we’ve interacted with others and those interactions have shaped, trivially or massively, their life experiences, and in turn who they are for others, and so on. Now I am under no illusion that my presence in this world has net-benefited folks. Even I’m not that narcissistic! Perhaps I’ve benefited some but harmed others. Perhaps I set out to benefit Sally but harmed her in the end or perhaps I truly did help Sally but inadvertently hurt Joe. Actions and their alleged consequences are radically alienated from our intentions and regrets. Here’s where Hope becomes Faith . Do I trust the Universe enough to believe that if I intend to benefit others and act in accordance with that intention, my influence will somehow be ‘net positive’? I have no reason to suppose that to be true but to believe otherwise is nihilism which ultimately leads to skepticism and solipsism . If I don’t push my button, that’s why. Not because I think I’m ‘God’s gift’ but rather because I’m not God. Perhaps I do have the right to decide, unilaterally and retroactively, whether I will or will not have been in the World, but I do not thereby claim the right to inflict the consequences of my decision on others. Call it the Grandson Paradox . If I choose never to have lived, I condemn my biological offspring never to be born. Do I have the right to make that decision for them? And it’s not just about biology. Every living organism that I encounter, face-to-face or vicariously, will be impacted, accidentally or existentially, by my decision. Bottom line, if I have a button and do not elect to push it, I do so, not in consideration of myself but in consideration of ‘others’, including you, dear reader, and of course, including God. I may assert a right to self-determination but I do not therefore claim the right to make determinations for you. And speaking of grandfathers, this thought experiment demonstrates a thesis first advanced by Anaximander, the grandfather of Western philosophy, in the 6th century BCE: All being is mutual; I am only because you are and vice versa. And speaking of grandsons, this thought experiment blows up the dimensions of Schoedinger’s cat carrier until it templates the edge of the Universe. Now nothing is ‘real’ until it interacts with an observer (or experimental apparatus) external to itself. There is no ‘I’ in ‘It’. (sic) My life is not real until my existence has been felt by another. I may be readily willing to sacrifice my own life experience, but I am much less ready to sacrifice yours. “And so we continue on, going up to Jerusalem, filled with awe and dread, Jesus leading the way…” (Mark 10:32) *** The Play Scene in Hamlet (1842) by Irish artist Daniel Maclise is a large oil painting that vividly depicts the moment in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when the prince stages a “play within a play” to reveal King Claudius’s guilt for murdering his father. The work was shown at the Royal Academy in 1842 and is now in the Tate Britain collection, celebrated for its dramatic narrative and detailed portrayal of the characters watching the performance unfold. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Porta Potty Perspective Annie D. Stutley "Job was, you might say, trapped in a Porta Potty right there in the desert, despairingly dejected and despondent." It began with an innocent craving for a York Peppermint Pattie. It was the end of the Sunday night of Mardi Gras in New Orleans a long, long time ago. The last float had passed, the crowd dispersed, and the party retreated upstairs to an apartment far above the muck below for some post-parade libations. All matters of the day settled, two more days of revelry on the horizon, the atmosphere inside nestled into the sweet smugness of good times rolling along...that is, until one member of the party--a friend--was motivated enough by a sudden craving to excuse herself from the carnival laissez-faire. She announced her intentions of a brief absence and set out across the street to where, in the banged up freezer of an old convenience store, would hopefully lie the frozen, artificially flavored mint delight of her deepest desire: a York Peppermint Pattie. She dodged carnival sludge and scattered, discarded beads in the street, for the street cleaners had not yet made their way to this slice of the avenue. She could hear them in the distance, beyond the arching oaks covered in colorful beads and the muted hollering of pop-up parties that dotted the route. She crossed not one, but two streetcar tracks, dodged more sludge and gooky parade throws until before her, lit up like a beacon of hope, was the blinking K under which she could “get the sensation.” But she suddenly had to “go”--a need to pee that came on as fast as the need for a Peppermint Pattie. How could she get the sensation properly while holding it in? To her right was a line of Porta Potties. It wasn’t ideal conditions, but it was better than rushing through her frozen mint chocolate moment. So she entered the last one in a line of publicly used and abused filth pots, locked the door, and did her business, unaware that pulling into the parking lot was the truck that would transport the pots of stinky gold to wherever they go to be cleaned. She also didn’t hear the sequence of padlocks clicking into place down the row of potties. It wasn’t until her door briefly rattled that she heard anything. Had a truck driven by or a gust of wind blown by? She wiped, zipped up, unlatched and pushed on the door, the peppermint pleasure seconds away. Only the door didn’t open but a tiny crack, and dangling in front of her eye was a padlock, quite definitely locked in place. Holy hell, I’m trapped , she thought. Holy hell, I’m trapped in a Porta Potty! It was the kind of realization usually accustomed to nightmare scenarios that belong in “would you rather” games? Would you rather be trapped in a Porta Potty or trapped in a tiny room with ten tarantulas? Dear God, I don’t know the answer! First, she screamed, “Help! Let me out!” until she was hoarse. No answer. Then she banged on the door until her fists hurt. Still no answer. Then she resigned her mind to the idea that she would either spend the night in a Porta Potty or die by death of toxic funk stench. The first would likely lead to the second. She thought about her brief 22 years on Earth--her parents, her boyfriend, all the dreams she never reached and that her death would probably turn into an urban legend. Until the end of time, at festivals and public gatherings all over the world, those with weak bladders would enter Porta Potties and joke to their friends, “Make sure no one locks me in!” Then she heard the worst sound she’d ever heard in her entire 22 years: the screeching sound of the motor of whatever machine drags a Porta Potty onto a truck. She pushed on the door and twisted her head so she could assess her inevitable doom. The Porta Potties were being connected to a mechanism that first dragged, then tilted them into the truck until they were upright again. Forget Mardi Gras sludge! She’d be covered in shit, swimming in shit, and undoubtedly die from shock of so much shit! Oh, hell no! This is not gonna go this way! So she pounded and yelled and kicked and screamed with all her might until, upon pushing on the door one last time, there on the other side of the padlock was another eye. She jumped back and then pushed on the door again. “What are you doing in there?” The voice of the eye was a weak, wavering voice. “What do you think?” she asked. “You’re not supposed to be in there,” the eye scolded her. “Well, you’re not supposed to lock me in!” she said. “Don’t you check these things before you lock them?” “It’s almost midnight.” The eye wouldn’t be discredited. But neither would she. “So! People still need to pee!" “You really should be more careful,” the eye began. “You should always bring someone with you when you go out like this.” Meanwhile, she was still stuck inside a Porta Potty and the eye was still outside in the land of fresh air. “Um, can you let me out, please?” she begged. The voice from the eye sighed, like maybe our friend's lack of judgment made her deserving of a few extra minutes surrounded by a day's worth of urine and carnival crap. Then, rather reluctantly, the padlock was released, and our peppermint protagonist burst through the door, gasping for air and sucking life into her lungs like she’d just been born. “Thank you,” she exhaled to the eye, which she now observed belonged to the oldest looking human being she’d ever seen. And she realized that it was no wonder he hadn’t heard her. He was 110 years old, probably half deaf, and yet moved with the pace of someone who acted like he had all the time in the world. He was a captor to be forgiven--just doing his job, though pretty badly. She shook his hand. She had been freed from death by human feces. That called for a generous dose of the human spirit. Then as if none of it had ever happened, she waltzed into the Circle K, meandered over to the freezer, and bought the only Peppermint Pattie still on the shelf. Either Peppermint Patties were a popular post-parade fare, or so unpopular were they that the one in her hand was as old as the eye itself. But none of that mattered, and as she sank her teeth into the curious blast of winter that settled onto her taste buds and ventilated her nostrils, a new perspective unleashed in her psyche. Shit happens, and sometimes it happens that we become trapped in it. Smelly, yes. repulsive, of course. But more than gross, it can be infectious--if we are weak to it. Shit tricks us into thinking it will always be this way, multiplying one negative thought on the other--despair on top of doubt on top of hopelessness. Job was, you might say, trapped in a Porta Potty right there in the desert, despairingly dejected and despondent. Like Job, it is far easier to let shit consume our outlook, define our future, yank us from hope, and control our thoughts, because whether we’re stuck in a Porta Potty or stuck in any terrible circumstance, it’s always easier to lose. Was it the day drinking turned night drinking talking, or had our friend experienced a life-changing nuance from within that Porta Potty? What if we considered all the problems consuming our fighting spirit to be nothing more than shit inside a Porta Potty? Your failing relationship, my anxious thoughts, this one's motherhood woes, that one's professional problems...your piles of crap and mine...what if we recognize that our losing response to our troubles is as infectious as the crap that almost compromised our poor, innocent, Peppermint Pattie-seeking friend? And furthermore, what if we decided that our moxie wasn’t going to go down with the shit of the world? What if instead we burst through our trapped door and breathe in a fresh perspective, one that refuses to succumb to negativity, refuses to give up hope for something better, and refuses to be taken down by the crap we permit to surround us? One that ultimately turns its back on all the muck and yuck and proclaims, "I know that my redeemer lives!" (Job 19:25), a resilience that knows we permit what our attitude promotes, one that leaves the past in the past, and gets on with living and believing, or, in the case of our friend, leaves the shit in the Porta Potty and gets on with the sensation for which she crossed St. Charles Avenue at midnight. I know enough to know that perspective can be found in the most unlikely places—like a used Porta Potty—but only if we’re open to perspective. Our friend teaches us a few lessons: never go to a public bathroom alone; never change direction without alerting your party firs; but more than anything, never let the shit get the best of you. If it isn’t worth the weight, don’t carry it into the future. Leave it in the toilet where it belongs. Our friend’s story didn’t reach urban legend status, yet it does have the makings of a sensational question: Would you rather be trapped in a Porta Potty of someone else's shit for ten minutes, or spend a lifetime trapped in a Porta Potty of your own making? Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Return to our Spring 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back What We Know and What We Don’t David Cowles Feb 13, 2025 “From Parmenides’ squinting eyes to the Electron Microscope and the James Webb, we’ve come a long way in 2,500 years.” It is a commonplace of modern culture to assume that we are rapidly closing in on a TOE – A Theory of Everything. Given that knowledge is growing exponentially, can omniscience be far off? Imagine a sphere comprising every ‘bit’ of information that constitutes the Cosmos. Inside that sphere imagine 3 additional spheres of varying volumes, each concentric with the outermost (Cosmic) sphere. Within the Cosmic Sphere lies the Sphere of the Ontologically Knowability; it contains everything any conscious being within any cosmos could ever know about that cosmos. Whatever is between these two spheres is forever unknowable due to ontological constraints. Within the Sphere of the Ontologically Knowable lies the Sphere of the Epistemologically Knowable. Between these two spheres lies data about the cosmos that is theoretically, but not actually, knowable given the present state of theory and technology. Finally, there is a sphere of things we could know now but just don’t. We haven’t got there yet; these are our frontiers. Of course, all of this ‘unknowing’ wraps around a Nucleus which consists of everything we think we do know, right now, about our Cosmos. Here’s the schematic: Nucleus of what we think we Know Now (Nucleus). Sphere of the Epistemologically Knowable (SEK). Sphere of the Ontologically Knowable (SOK). Sphere of the Cosmos (Cosmos). While the absolute size of these spheres is of interest, the relative size is more instructive. The music of these spheres is anything but a monotone. Start with Nucleus, what we think we know; obviously, it’s expanding and not at a steady rate. It appears to be accelerating; if so, is the rate of acceleration smooth? SEK is also expanding. Every day, new advances in theoretical physics and experimental techniques push out the reach of human intelligence. It seems like every day new niches and entire levels of reality become accessible to our investigations. We can only know what we can know. We can’t know what we can’t know but we can know that we don’t know it. SOK is presumably fixed. And Cosmos? That’s beyond my pay grade. What we do know is that both the Nucleus and SEK are expanding…but at variable, and varying, rates. For example, until fairly recently, Cosmos was thought to be no more than 14,000 years old; now we know it’s 14,000,000,000. We were only off by 6 orders of magnitude. Likewise, its size was thought to be about 1/10th the size of what we now know to be our Solar System. We equated Cosmos and SOK with SEK. Clearly, our Nucleus and our SEK are expanding rapidly, and at an accelerating rate. Surely something approaching omniscience is right around the corner! But commonplace wisdom is not always correct; correction : commonplace wisdom is usually not correct. And this is case in point! Knowledge is not a static commodity. My six year old grandchild once asked his mother, “Tell me everything you know!” Knowledge is not like that. There is no end to what can be known, although there are certain limitations permanently imposed by SOK and temporarily by SEK. When we thought we knew that the cosmos could fit inside what is now known to be Jupiter’s orbit, we weren’t wrong. It was as much as could be known at the time given the epistemological constraints in play. We knew what we knew but we didn’t know what we didn’t know; we were entitled to feel cocky. With the advent of the telescope, Palomar, the Hubble, and the Webb, it’s now possible to know more, a lot more; and we do know more, much more! But we have our own epistemological barriers to reckon with. For example, we can only go as far as the speed of light can carry us! Every day, we watch from a window table at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglas Adams) as whole galaxies slip across the event horizon. We are watching Cosmos ‘set’ as it expands. Someday, there will only be Milky Way; someday only Solar System; someday… Even now, we are walled off from the Multiverse and from Penrose’s Cosmic Cycles (CCC: Big Bounce). Not only does the extent of our current cosmos exceed our ken but we believe that our cosmos may be one of many, perhaps infinitely many, ‘alternatives’. As much as we do know, what we don’t know vastly exceeds it. Even the unknown is nuanced. We need to identify three ‘flavors’ of ignorance: (1) I could know it but I don’t; (2) it’s knowable but I can’t (epistemological constraints); (3) as far as we know, it’s not knowable (ontological constraints). So how much do we know? That depends on which flavor of ignorance you choose for your baseline. Compared to what we can know but don’t (flavor #1 ), I’ll stipulate that we’re in pretty good shape. Let’s face it, we know a lot. But do we know more, proportionate to what we could know, than Parmenides knew 2500 years ago? Or Copernicus 500 years ago? I believe that Parmenides and Copernicus were aware, broadly speaking, of epistemological and ontological constraints; however, their sense of ‘what lay beyond’ is much vaguer than our own. And within the realm of the fully knowable, I conjecture that they understood about the same percentage as we do today. I am proposing the following: knowledge is growing at an accelerating rate…but so is the Sphere of the Knowable. The ratio of what is known to what is unknown may not be growing, as most suppose; it may be level…or it may even be decreasing. What say you? Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back 500 Year-Long Nap David Cowles Feb 24, 2022 It’s 1000 A.D. and Pope Sylvester II is the undisputed leader of the Christian Church in Europe. He is also generally regarded as the continent’s most accomplished scientist. Faith was strong at that time, but it did not interfere in any way with the exploration of nature. The relationship between Science and Religion was symbiotic…and synergistic. It was widely accepted that God revealed himself through the structures & processes of the universe as well as in Scripture & Tradition. It’s 1000 A.D. and Pope Sylvester II is the undisputed leader of the Christian Church in Europe. He is also generally regarded as the continent’s most accomplished scientist. Faith was strong at that time, but it did not interfere in any way with the exploration of nature. The relationship between Science and Religion was symbiotic…and synergistic. It was widely accepted that God revealed himself through the structures & processes of the universe as well as in Scripture & Tradition. So, no apparent contradiction could be real! If ever a contradiction does arise, rerun the experiments, review the data, reread the scriptures, and pray for inspiration! (Hmm, this might not be a bad practice for all of us, every day.) A major tenet of that faith was that no such contradiction could remain unresolved for long. Why? Because ‘faith was strong at that time’! Fast forward 500 years: now this same church is persecuting Galileo Galilei for his groundbreaking astronomical discoveries. What happened? Fear happened! The Inquisition was never a manifestation of faith; it was always a symptom of the lack of faith – bishops asking, “What if we’re wrong? Do we have a Plan B?” Unfortunately, that Plan B plunged the Atlantic community into a true dark age that lasted half a millennium. But now fast forward another 500 years! Two Jesuit astronomers from the Vatican Observatory played key roles in two recent discoveries: One found a new member of our solar system (2021 XD7) in orbit beyond Neptune; the other found evidence for a long-lost galaxy, Pontus, apparently “eaten” by our Milky Way. It’s not easy to wake up from a 500 year long nap, but we’re trying! Since the middle of the 20th century, there has been growing evidence of a tenuous rapprochement between the scientific community and its theological counterpart. It can’t happen soon enough! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“Following the science, LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…it’s true, precisely 0% of the time!” < Back Logical Positivism David Cowles Dec 1, 2023 “Following the science, LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…it’s true, precisely 0% of the time!” It’s October 2023, and Norwegian novelist and playwright, Jon Fosse, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In naming Fosse, the Nobel Committee cited “ his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable.” But isn’t that the function of all literature? Of all language even? According to Heidegger, art is what empowers us to see the world in new ways. As a certain poet (Keats) once said, “Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty.” Language is ‘saying’. If language says it, then it’s said, and therefore obviously was never really ‘unsayable’. When I was in college, Logical Positivism (LP) was the philosophy du jour . It presented a view of the world that was embraced by academic philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic. The justly renowned Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote LP’s Bible ( Tractatus )…before he repudiated it years later in Philosophical Investigations . According to LP, propositions (sentences) have meaning if, and only if, they are subject to ‘falsification’ via the scientific method. Undoubtedly, such propositions do have a special semantic character, but they represent a tiny fraction of the things human beings yearn to say to one another about their lived experience. According to the tenets of LP, propositions that cannot be falsified are just meaningless strings of words. ‘To be’, Hamlet, is to be consequential . There is no being without consequences. If we cannot identify the consequences of an Act, why should we assume that there was an Act in the first place? Where there’s smoke, there isn’t always fire! We are rewriting Descartes: “I am, therefore I am engaged; I am engaged, therefore I am.” In elementary school, we were taught that sentences are meaningful if and only if they link words selected from a culturally shared lexicon according to patterns that conform to a culturally shared syntax. Later in life, we learn that such rules are arbitrary. New words are coming into our language all the time from all sorts of different sources. Also, strings of words can often be meaningful even if they don’t conform perfectly to ‘the rules of grammar’. Only the most conservative critic would argue that James Joyce’s two great novels, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake , are meaningless, even though the former includes copious neologisms, and the latter is barely recognizable as English. And then there’s ‘poetry’! When a writer uses language ‘poetically’ (in the broadest possible sense of the word), no hard and fast rules apply… ever . The author and the reader come together virtually, of course, and agree on a vocabulary and grammar that are meaningful to them . If you find my writing gibberish, and many do, that’s ok by me, as long as ‘ some of my readers are able to tease some of my meaning out of some of my articles’. (Pseudo-Lincoln) I think most of us would agree that the most of the important propositions we’ve encountered in life would not pass LP’s Turing Test : I love you; thou shalt not kill; this sunset is gorgeous. Superficially, LP might be appealing. After all, if a proposition claims to be true, why shouldn’t it undergo rigorous verification? Why should I pay any attention to assertions that cannot be verified? It’s 2023—we ‘follow the science’ — now! The exclusion of so-called ‘slang’ and ‘poetry’ from the semantic universe is a heavy price to pay for scientific precision, but it is far from LP’s deepest flaw: Propositions refer to events. Every event is unique. If an event were not unique, it would not be an ‘event’. Following the science , LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…that is essence of science, and of course, it’s true, precisely 0% of the time! Repetition is an approximation. An experiment creates ‘information’ only to the extent that the results deviate from expectations. Every event has something in common with every other event, but no event has everything in common with any other event. So, is this the ultimate irony or what? LP is based on the truth criteria of science, which in turn rely entirely on the usually unstated but always false ‘axiom of repeatability’. A little reflection will likely lead you to conclude that it is precisely those ‘excluded propositions’ that embody the real content of our lives. The thrill of contemplating a remarkable sunset is for most of us a more important aspect of life than the satisfaction of calculating the precise boiling point of water. According to LP, ‘meaningful propositions’ are propositions that can ultimately be reduced to algorithms of the form, ‘if x, then y’. Conceivably, every such ‘verifiable proposition’ could be programmed into a relational database and then downloaded onto a mechanical platform (e.g., a computer). While such a result might be beyond our current capabilities, the project itself is certainly conceivable. That would make ‘living life’ a superfluous exercise. At the very moment when we are discovering that reflective consciousness is liberally distributed throughout the biosphere (and possibly beyond), LP comes along and says we don’t need reflective consciousness after all. ‘We don’t need no lived experience.’ (Pseudo-Pink Floyd) We can know everything that there is to know algorithmically. Can you stand another twist? This is beginning to sound like an episode of Big Brother (CBS). In fact, we know that the assumptions underlying LP are falsifiable! For example, LP was supposed to rescue the concept of Truth from the machinations of skeptics and nihilists. LP allowed us to answer Pontius Pilate’s dismissive question, “What is truth?” It’s simply the set of all verifiable propositions (above). The only problem with this is that we know that no algorithm can generate the set of all true propositions (Godel). Far from rescuing Truth, LP is incompatible with it! Likewise, we know that no two events are ever identical; if they were, they would be one event. Sure, events can closely resemble one another, and that may be good enough for government work, but it doesn’t satisfy us philosophically. The soul of the scientific method is repeatability, but no real-world event can ever be repeated. Finally, we increasingly suspect that the fundamental building blocks of Universe are not objects or even events but patterns. Contrary to what we said above, patterns can be congruent. So, have we rescued LP after all? ‘Fraid not! Congruent patterns are not identical patterns. Congruence may be serial or scalar: (1) ‘serial congruence’ refers to identical patterns that have different locations in spacetime; (2) ‘scalar congruence’ refers to patterns that are identical but on different scales. Examples: (1) a box of ball bearings; (2) atom, cell, or solar system. BTW, did you hear the one about the atom, the cell, and the solar system that walked into a bar? The bartender couldn’t tell them apart. That’s scalar congruence. To the extent that Universe displays scalar congruence, we say that it has a ‘holographic structure’ and consists of ‘fractals’. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Yuletide 2023 Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

“Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” < Back Christ the King David Cowles Nov 30, 2022 “Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” Since 1970, the Roman Catholic Church has celebrated the Feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It is a fitting close to a year that began with Old Testament prophesies of a coming Messiah, a Messiah who Christians believe is Jesus. The scripture readings (Cycle C) that the Church has chosen for this feast day introduce us to three distinct but related aspects of Christ’s kingship: First, a reading from 2 Samuel recalls the inauguration of the historical King David, chosen by God, anointed by Samuel, and ratified by the leaders of Israel’s twelve tribes: “All the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron…and at Hebron King David made a covenant with them in the presence of the Lord; and they anointed David king over Israel.” Jesus, of course, is of the House of David and, therefore, has a valid hereditary claim to David’s throne. As David’s successor, Jesus represents the historical kingship of God. Yet, Jesus never suggests that he should have universal political authority. He did not come to depose Rome and inherit its empire so that ‘Rome’ could be reborn in Jerusalem. On the contrary, political power was the third and final temptation offered by Satan and rejected by Jesus during Jesus’ 40 days in the desert (Mt 4: 9). Instead, scripture and the Church teach that all political rulers, whether emperors, kings, presidents, or legislatures, derive their authority from God but maintain that authority only in so far as, and to the extent that, their policies are consistent with God’s laws. According to this model, God rules! But he rules through the agency of his priests, prophets, and kings . Christ the King is not Christ the Bureaucrat. God does not dictate the details of public policy but rather establishes guidelines and principles that all laws, if they are to be valid, must respect. There are many legitimate roads to Ecbatan , but no human law is binding if it conflicts with a law of God. So, Christ’s royal authority does extend to the historical realm, but it is exercised through secular rulers chosen according to the culture and tradition of each political entity (e.g., nation). The second reading is a reading we’ve encountered before in ATM ( Christology ) . F rom Paul’s Letter to the Colossians : “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and invisible…all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross, whether those on earth or those in heaven.” This is not Jesus, the historical successor to King David; this is Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, King of Creation, Ruler of the Universe. And what are the royal powers that Colossians claims on Christ’s behalf? 1. Since all things in Heaven and on Earth were created in him, through him and for him, his sovereignty is absolute. The Kingdom of God is not a democratic republic, nor is it even a constitutional monarchy…but it is a utopia. 2. All things hold together in him. Like any charismatic leader, he is the glue that binds society together as a single community with a common task and a common destiny. Because the Son of God is also fully human, we humans have ‘legal standing’ to enter into a binding contract (covenant) with YHWH. 3. He is the medium and the process through which all things in Heaven and on Earth are reconciled… for him . Through Christ, conflicts are resolved into contrasts and contrasts into harmonies. Today, most members of the cognoscenti believe that Universe came into being on its own. causa sui . Modernists that we are, we take it for granted that this is at least possible. But what if it isn’t? What if an independent, self-created universe is intrinsically unstable and, therefore, not possible after all? It is beyond the scope of this essay to resolve that question, but the question per se underscores the importance of Colossians for contemporary cosmology. Safe to say, Colossians presents a very different model of cosmogenesis than we are used to hearing. Imagine a visiting professor from Colossae addressing a classroom of eager graduate students in Cambridge (either Cambridge, MA or Cambridge, UK): “In order for a non-trivial universe to emerge, evolve and endure, a number of factors must come into play simultaneously. First, there must be a creative force that gives rise to novel entities (events); second, those entities must occur within some sort of defined ontological locus; third, all the events that make up Universe must be oriented toward a common end ( teleos ); and fourth, the creative force must not only bring novel entities into being, but it must also work ceaselessly to resolve conflicts among those entities. “Creation is as much about the ends of things as it is about their beginnings; it operates throughout the entire life of every entity. Ultimately, it is a process by which a multiplicity of simple things becomes a complex unity. It is that process that binds entity to entity in a way that constitutes Universe. “Otherwise, anything that might emerge randomly and spontaneously from the void would either be isolated and inert or cancelled out by conflicting ‘counter-events’. The net informational content of any such universe would always be approximately zero.” Now, one of our ‘sophomore’ cosmologists might be expected to interrupt vehemently at this juncture. Lacking the reverential deference characteristic of a by-gone era, our would-be Hawking might say, “Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” “Not so fast,” our Anatolian professor retorts. “Can you fully explain the nature of any of these forces? Can you explain how it is that each has the exact quantitative value it does? Do you understand that if any one of these apparently arbitrary values varied even slightly, Universe as we know it would be impossible? Is it not much more likely that these forces are simply the physical manifestations of something deeper in the structure of the cosmos? Something like Christ, for example?” “Isn’t this just Creationism repackaged?” “It’s more profound than that. I am equating Cosmology with Christology! And note: this is not the same as equating Christology with Cosmology. The math is not commutative.” The final reading, taken from the Gospel of Luke , tells the story of Jesus’ crucifixion: “The people stood by and watched; the rulers meanwhile sneered at him and said, ‘He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Messiah of God.’” Even the soldiers jeered at him…they called out, ‘If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.’ Above him there was an inscription that read, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ Enigmatically, Pontius Pilate had ordered that placard nailed onto the cross above Jesus’ head. The Jewish leaders complained to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews’, write that he said he was the King of the Jews.” But Pilate answered with his own statement of proto faith, “What I have written, I have written.” “Now one of the criminals hanging there (Jesus was crucified between two ‘thieves’) reviled Jesus, saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.’ The other, however…said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He (Jesus) replied to him, ‘Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’” This is the first time that anyone (other than Jesus himself) has clearly acknowledged the other-worldly nature of Christ’s Kingdom. Before Pilate, Jesus says, “My Kingdom does not belong to this world…my kingdom is not here.” Before that, he has tried many times to educate his disciples on the eschatological nature of his reign – without any apparent success. But the so-called ‘good thief’ gets it…and just in the nick of time. The reading from Luke’s Gospel introduces us to yet a third aspect of Jesus’ Kingship. While his laws are normative on Earth, they are often ignored in practice; but in the Kingdom of Heaven, Christ is the supreme ruler. That is what we mean when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Looking for Heaven ( aka Paradise)? It’s located at the intersection of History and Eternity! It consists of historical entities but historical entities that have somehow been ‘glorified’ (i.e., reconciled and eternalized). So, on the Feast of Christ the King, we justly celebrate Christ as Sovereign of this world, Ruler of the Universe, and Heavenly King. But how are these aspects of Christ’s kingship related? The reconciliation of all things through Christ and for Christ can only occur based on the consistent application of specific values: beauty, truth, and justice, for example. How do we know which ‘values’ are necessary for reconciliation to occur? And which ‘anti-values’ are incompatible with reconciliation? Could reconciliation be successful if it was based on the absence of beauty, truth, justice, i.e., if it was based on ugliness, falsehood, injustice? Obviously not! On the contrary, such anti-values are the sources and symptoms of conflict in the first place. Ugliness is inherently unstable, as the urge to beautify is universal, even at the level of pre-conscious entities (e.g., molecules). Falsehood eliminates any objective basis for consensus. As for injustice, who has not chanted, “No justice, no peace!” at least once? Making such a list of values and their opposites quickly identifies the sources and styles of conflict in our world and points out the avenues that are available to us for the resolution of that conflict. These values, once identified, must guide all valid law making in the historical realm. Laws that explicitly and intentionally undermine beauty, truth, and justice, for example, are invalid on their face. Sidebar : we are not concerned here with legitimate differences of opinion. For example, well-meaning people may disagree about which laws would be most effective in promoting justice. It is the purview of secular governments to choose among such potential laws; any one of those choices would at least be valid, even if suboptimal . What would be invalid is any law that aims to undermine justice per se . There is a single thread that unites Christ’s historical, cosmological, and heavenly kingship. It is the set of values that form the basis for universal reconciliation, that are normative on earth and that are realized perfectly in Heaven. No better way to celebrate the end of the liturgical year! Image: Painting of Christ in Majesty from the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (AD 1427) David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back I'm SO Proud of You! David Cowles Jun 8, 2023 “To my ear, ‘I’m so proud of you’ is culture-speak for ‘I’m not proud of you at all.’” It’s what every child longs to hear. It trumps I love you by a mile – 6 simple words that satisfy our need for Identity , that reinforce our sense of Belonging , and that affirm our Potency . It’s a heady cocktail…especially for underage drinkers. What does it mean when someone says, “I’m proud of you”? It expresses the speaker’s satisfaction or pleasure at some thing you’re being or some thing you’ve done. Most parents won’t say directly, “Ok, now I can love you!” but those same parents are perfectly willing to say the exact same thing, provided it is encrypted. I’m proud of you is code for Now I can truly love you . For confirmation, listen in on the Litany of Life (composer unknown): “Now I’ve said my ABCs, tell me what you think of me. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “You just got your first Little League base hit. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “I know it hurt but you didn’t cry. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “You got all A’s on your report card. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “You’re the first person in our family to graduate high school/college/medical school. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “You have a great new job. Refrain : I’m so proud of you! “You’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. Rest in peace! Refrain : I’m so proud of you!” OMG, a lifetime wasted trying to make a parent proud so they can love me! To my ear, I’m so proud of you is culture-speak for I’m not proud of you at all. When someone says they’re proud of me, they mean that they are proud of some task I’ve performed, some goal I’ve achieved, or some role I’ve assumed. But my accomplishments and my personae are not me ! They are costumes I’ve put on, usually at the insistence of some overbearing director. You may have enjoyed my performance as the title character in Hamlet . You can even say you’re ‘proud’ of the job I did: I wish you wouldn’t, but you can say it if you must. What you cannot say is that you are proud of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark because, news flash, he’s not real! Yet every time you say, “I’m so proud of you,” that’s exactly what you’re saying. What could be more foolish than to be proud of a fictional character! Oliver Twist, Stephen Dedalus, Rocky Balboa, and me. Yet whenever I assume some role, I’m just ‘getting into character’. I may be real, but the character I’m playing is not. You can be proud of me, but you can’t be proud of my character because, news flash, he’s not real! One day each year, Halloween, I take on the role of a witch, a pirate, or a superhero. On the 364 ‘Anti-Halloweens’, I take on the role of ‘a good little boy (or girl)’, especially around Christmas. But I am no more that ‘good kid’ than I am that ‘superhero’. You probably wouldn’t say, “I’m proud of the superhero you’ve become,” so neither should you say, “What a good kid you are! I’m so proud of you.” When I hear you say those words, part of me hears them as “I’m not proud of you at all.” You could have just said, “I love you” and meant it. In which case you would have loved me, regardless of my achievements, or lack thereof, and no matter what roles I happen to be playing at any one time. Or, another idea, how about, “I respect you, I respect the person you’ve become, I respect the things you’re doing?” Hearing those words from you would be seismic. I may be ‘unsheltered’ on the streets of Liverpool, or I may be well housed at #10 ? Are you ‘proud of me’ either way? Didn’t think so! But am I any less ‘me’ in Liverpool than I am in London? Either way, it’s still me! And who knows? Over the course of a lifetime, I might end up being both. So, I’m proud of you has nothing whatsoever to do with me . It’s the semantic equivalent of Look at that gorgeous sunset . Except worse! People who say, “Look at that gorgeous sunset” usually don’t mean to take credit for it. (Exception: God, boasting in the Book of Job. ) But when someone says, “I’m proud of you,” most often that person believes they had something to do with ‘making you the person you are today’. The only person they’re proud of is themselves. So, I’m proud of you means that you are proud of something I’ve done, not of who I am per se . Deeper still, it means “I’m proud of myself for the role I played in enabling you to play your role, or perform your task, so successfully.” When parents say, “I’m proud of you,” they’re taking a victory lap! This does not mean that you can’t say “proud”. You can certainly be proud of yourself for something you’ve accomplished. You set out to get an A in Chemistry and you did; it’s ok for you to feel proud…of yourself. But if I get an A in Chemistry, please don’t detract from my accomplishment by saying that you’re ‘proud of me’. What right do you have to be proud? You didn’t stay up all night studying…or helping me study. When I was 12, I moved from a neighborhood school to an elite school. I was lost. These kids could read…I mean really read: Dickens and the like, while I was still struggling with Dick and Jane . My grandparents swung into action. One or the other of them read every book I was assigned and laboriously talked me through each plot. When June came around at last, my grandparents were justly proud of my grades: ‘C minuses’ all across the board! (We weren’t looking for A’s!) They were entitled to be proud; they earned those grades more than I did. But that is the exception that proves the rule. So what’s the alternative? You could have said, “I salute you” or “I congratulate you”, but that wouldn’t convey the same intensity as “I’m proud of you”, would it? Pride attests to a powerful, not to say incestuous, relationship between two actors: a puppeteer and her puppet. So, I’m proud of you is not only code for Now I can love you ; it’s also code for Now I can love myself . So can you never say “I’m proud of you” again? I wouldn’t go that far! Chances are your kids are used to hearing it from you and it might confuse them if you suddenly stopped. Try substituting the word ‘respect’ for ‘pride’; see if that works for you. If not, if you must say, “Proud”, make sure you understand what it is you’re saying when you say it. Who’s proud of whom and for what? Deconstruct! Then try to convey to your children that you love them regardless of their behavior or achievements…then try to believe it yourself! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 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Aletheia Today is a collection of essays designed to offer fresh insights into traditional philosophical and theological problems and to apply those insights to contemporary developments in culture, art and the social and physical sciences. About Us What is Aletheia Today? Aletheia Today is where philosophy, theology, and science converge in a collection of critical thought essays and personal reflections intended to provoke constructive dialog among people of varying ideologies, faiths and belief systems. Travel Back in Time... It’s circa 500 B.C. and Parmenides of Elea is teaching science and philosophy all over the Greek speaking world. Today, he is widely recognized as the Father of Western Science and the Father of Western Philosophy. Statement of Faith AT Magazine is dedicated to elucidating and encouraging the 21st century convergence of philosophy, theology, and science. The editors of ATM are people of faith in the Christian tradition. However, ATM is intended to promote respectful, constructive dialog among people of good will, regardless of religious affiliation, if any. Articles from independent contributors to ATM do not necessarily represent the views of its editorial board. Meet our team of writers. Click here for our masthead.

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson < Back Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson Contributor Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson is the Roslyn and Abner Goldstine Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and Vice President of American Jewish University. He is also Dean of the Zachariah Frankel College at University of Potsdam, training Conservative/Masorti rabbis for Europe. Why Land is Different