Life 101, A Wise Man's Advice for Adulthood

We've spoken of how things have changed over time and how rapidly some things are changing right now.  The fact is some things still need changing. Change is often as frightening as it is inevitable.  A certain biologist has noted that the human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein, it rejects it. What often happens in the face of change is the establishment of firm battle lines between those who proclaim the necessity of change against those who want to protect the status quo (the way things presently are.)  Virtually all of the changes that have taken place during the last half century– changes that have begun  to bring more justice and rationality to the issues of racial and gender equality, the needs for environmental protection, the rights of the disabled, the safety of consumers, refinements in the political process, etc. – that most of us today would acknowledge are good and appropriate changes, were strongly resisted by one group o...

A story is told about my erstwhile shirt-tail relative Sherlock , that he and his friend Dr. Watson went on a camping and hiking trip together.  They had gone to bed and were lying there looking up at the stars.  Holmes said, "Watson, look up.  What do you see?" "I see thousands of stars," Watson replied. "And what does this mean to you?" inquired Holmes.  "Well," said Watson, "I guess it means we'll have another nice day tomorrow.  What does it mean to you, Holmes."  Holmes replied, "To me it means someone has stolen our tent."  Holmes had frequent opportunity to say to his friend, "My dear Watson: You see, but you do not observe."  It's easy to see superficially.  Observing is seeing in depth.  One of the characters in Richard Llewellyn 's None But the Lonely Heart   says, "I was out walking one day and in the distance I saw an animal.  I came up closer and saw it was a man.  I came up still closer...

Years ago the CBS news commentator, Edward R. Morrow , created  a series of five-minute  broadcasts called " This I Believe. "  Each program presented some well-known personality to make a five-minute "faith statement," a statement of his or her perception of Truth or Reality. I'd like to recommend this as a useful homework assignment for you as you read these pages and continuing long after you finish these pages, and along with it a special tool.    Call it a journal if you wish, but with the specific intention of focusing on your understanding of the Truth about Reality as you perceive it.  It could be called "My Answer to the Question, 'What Is Truth?'"  or "What's Going On In My Life."  You give it your own title.  You don't have to write in it every day, just on those days when something happens or some insight comes that informs or alters or expands your understanding of life, yourself, people, history, God -- anything....

Among the tools that will be useful in your journey are dreams.  There are two kinds of dreams we can have.  There are the intentional dreams we have for the future of our life or the life of the nation or the world.  Such dreams are usually called visions... The Book of Proverbs says "Without a vision the people perish."  I believe that.  Wherever we are in our lives there has to be something challenging us to a fuller life or a better human community and pulling us toward its achievement.  Humans are the only animal who perceive the difference between things as they are and as they ought to be.  It is our prerogative to be dreamers. "Mystic on a Cliff" by Tim Holmes Someone has said "Hope is not a dream, but a way of making dreams come true."  Dom Helder Camera noted the importance of dreaming in community.  He said, "When we are dreaming alone, it is only a dream.  When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality."...

One reason that answering questions is so difficult is that the answers often don't seem all that certain and stable.  Someone attended a twenty-year college reunion and was amazed to discover that the final exam questions were the same as those he had had to answer when he was a student.  So he asked a professor, "Aren't you worried that each new class can get the questions in advance from the previous class?"  "That's not the problem," the prof replied, "because each year we have to change the answers." "Huge Wave", by Tim Holmes Computer science information is changing so rapidly that teachers in that area have to warn their students that half of what they learn will be outdated by the time they apply for a job.  Changes in understanding are taking place in every field.  There's a line in Herman Melville 's great novel,  Moby Dick ,  in which someone describes the storm the ship is experiencing by saying, "Everything n...