In 1942 Isaac Asimov, in a science fiction story called “Runaround”, introduced three laws that the robots in his stories must obey.  The first law is simply this: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”  A simplified form is simply: “A robot may not harm a human being.”.

Are these not fictional laws for fictional robots?  Certainly.  Yet, as robotics and the various bio-engineering sciences advance their technologies and create devices with increasing ability to act autonomously and “intelligently”, the ethical debates around such artificially intelligent devices, the ethics of their decision processes and the moral responsibility of their actions are increasingly important.  Asimov’s laws of robotics sometimes come up in such discussions, and the first law seems obviously desirable.  Some robotic systems have powerful mechanisms that can kill or maim a human; such a robotic device must be able to sense a human presence and cease action or avoid action in that area.  Heuristic systems that can “learn” and self-modify their own decision making processes are particularly important in such discussions.  Clearly one of the limiting parameters on a heuristic robot is that it must not learn to harm a human; positive controls must be in place such that it cannot learn such.

A few days ago The New York Times published a story on the long history of cover-ups and prevarications of the cardiac dangers of the diabetes drug Avandia by its maker, GlaxoSmithKline.  There seem to be real questions under discussion about how to interpret drug test data, and sometimes a medical cure may involve an inadvertent harm that, given present technology, is unavoidable (e.g. the side effects of cancer therapy).  Such discussions aside, from the internal memoranda GlaxoSmithKline knew of the problems for years and did their best to conceal their findings.  They acted similarly with their drug Paxil, with its increase in teen suicidal thought and behavior.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/health/policy/13avandia.html

Might it be too much to require the management of drug companies to adhere to the first law of robotics?  How is it that such a constraint applies categorically to robots and not to humans who, with far greater impact and responsibility, daily make decisions about the products they produce that can indeed harm, or even kill, humans?  After all, if we find such a law desirable and necessary for robots, surely it should a fortiori apply to humans, and above all to those in the healing professions.

In ogni rapporto umano, ogni dinamica interpersonale, facciamo decisioni e formiamo atteggiamenti o che ci portano verso la relazionalità e la solidarietà, o che ci portano verso “O Dio, ti ringrazio che non sono come quello/a lì”.

In every human relationship, in every encounter with another person, we make decisions and develop attitudes that either lead us toward relationship or toward “O God, I thank you that I am not like that person”.

Over the past few months I have noticed that there are billboards in the area with a picture of an individual and the slogan “I am second”; there is no other explanation or contact information.  It did not take much to understand that there was some contemporary church marketing thing going on.  Further information may be found at the links below.

http://iamsecond.com/

http://iamsecond.wordpress.com/

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-billboard_20met.ART0.State.Edition1.4a2064f.html

At first glance this might appear to be an authentic expression of what the Christian church should be like.  It can be difficult to disagree with those behind such a campaign without impugning them as persons or their motives.  That is not my intent.  I do not know those behind this, but in a spirit of charity I trust that they are sincere.

That said, I profoundly disagree with the campaign’s message, partly in what it does say, but more centrally in what it does not say.

What it does say is noted in the very formulation of the statement, “I am second”.  The sole subject of the sentence is “I”, already irrecoverably self-centered.

What it does not say is that I have an essential relationship to my neighbor as well as to God.  The predication of the statement that one is immediately subordinate to an unspecified other, subsequently discovered to be God, only covers the first of the two greatest commandments, to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength.  The second greatest commandment, to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is absent.  Why?

Considering the second greatest command, the formulation should be something like “I am third”.  Would that sell?  Probably not.  Yet, when did the Gospel become something to be sold using clever marketing methods?

There will probably be some good come out of this, and one might question why I don’t simply accept that and be glad for it?  In response, this campaign may be clever marketing, but it is distorted theology; distorted theology leads to distorted praxis.  It bypasses the essential relationship to the Other that is the core of the church as the eschatological community, living kingdom values now while awaiting its fulfillment.  Because of its “I” focus and its eclipsing of the second greatest commandment, in my view the long term result of the “I am second” campaign draws us yet further away from the understanding and actualization of the eschatological church.  That is its greatest loss.

Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev050609a.cfm

From the above web site: “The church is bombarded with two competing messages about money and capitalism. The first message is that wealth is bad and causes much of the world’s suffering; the second is that wealth is good and God wants you to prosper and be rich.”

A friend sent me this; I have not had time to listen to the presentation itself so cannot comment on that.  However, snipping this bit of text from the event’s web page for brief comment, there are two foci in the above: wealth and self. This seems a misfocus; the 2nd greatest command is about the relation of self and other, not about self to wealth. With the self-other relationship as primary, I wonder if much of the rest won’t balance itself.

Last week my wife received a letter from a girl she had visited in the county jail.  The girl asked her thoughts on a few questions for a Bible study in their tank, one of which was this:

“If you were in front of God right now, and he asked you, ‘Why should I let you in my Kingdom of Heaven?’, what would your answer be?”

My wife mentioned this to me last Saturday, and after a few moments’ reflection I responded: “Because I want what you want.”

The usual answer is something like this: “Because of the blood of Jesus.”  And that is undeniably true.  It is only on that basis that we have any claim at all before God the Father.  And yet something seemed missing in that response.  Yes, I might respond thusly on the basis of Jesus’ blood, but does it follow that I want to?  I am not so sure.

Sure, we all think we want to “go to heaven”, but I do not think it is as simple as that.  Considering the Beatitudes as reflecting the ethic of the coming kingdom, if we want to live that way now we will be right at home then; if we do not want to live that way now, why do we think we will want to live that way then?  Jesus indicated that many would choose not to live that way, and they will be shut out.

We have a choice to begin living now by the ethics of the coming kingdom: one, love God totally, and two, love others as myself.  That entails living in forgiveness, humility and other such personal virtues, long a part of the broad Christian tradition.

Loving one’s neighbor as oneself also entails living with others in mind.  When we see others oppressed or in dire need, how do we respond?  Do we respond?  Is this not what it means to hunger and thirst after justice (which is interpersonal, rather than the personalistic “righteousness”?)

John concluded succinctly: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (I John 3:17-20.)

Our ongoing responses here and now determine how much we choose to live, or deny, the love of God, the central ethic of the kingdom.  Such love is motivated by the Spirit; if we refuse to respond in compassion, we refuse the Spirit who would change us to respond as God responded to us and wants to respond to the other.  If we choose to respond to the promptings of the Spirit and act toward meeting the needs of another, we can take assurance that we are living as he would, that we “belong to the truth.”  And the evidence of our changed lives is our assurance of becoming more like him.

The “eternal security of the believer” is not just a theological proposition; it emerges from a changed life, and without that as evidence that we are actualizing God’s love toward others, John concludes that we do not and cannot have that security.

James said something similar: “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:14-17.)

The faith that James discusses here requires more than the active acceptance of and alignment to a credal formulation of the nature of Jesus as God’s Son, born of the virgin Mary, killed for our sins, resurrected on the third day, ascended to the Father, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.  It includes the understanding that we are to respond to others with the kindness shown to us by God; we are to actualize now what God wants done in the world, one act of love at a time, until he returns to completely fulfill it.

There are limits.  Jesus rebuffed those on whom he had had compassion the day before (John 6:26-27.)  Unconditional love does not mean that we do whatever others demand; it means responding to others as best we understand without conditions that they respond in any particular way.

One could doubtless rebut this as “works salvation;” I leave that squabble to others.  What I want to do is hear what the Scriptures are saying and respond accordingly.  Saved by grace alone?  Absolutely—and changed by the same grace to actualize that grace toward others.

If we choose now to live the love of God, when asked why God should let us in we can truthfully respond that we want what he wants: to see the kingdom fulfilled in all the earth, and we desire to play an active part.  He will be delighted to invite us in.

A couple of months ago in a discussion with a few friends I came to understand something I had never seen before.  I am still absorbing the implications of this for the life of the church.

Four hundred years of prophetic silence was broken by John the Baptist with a succinct statement of radical equality.  Tom Friedman sees the world flattening now; John saw that two millennia ago.  John spoke of a leveling, a flattening: every hill cut down, every valley filled in.  It doesn’t seem too far a stretch to consider that the valleys would be filled with what was cut off the hills.  When asked what that means, Luke 3:10-14 records that John gave two specifics: one, be satisfied with what you have, though you have the power to coerce from others, and two, if you have two, give one, whether it be clothing or food.

As I have considered this, the usual style of John’s declaration as poetic verse seems a travesty of translation.  John did not live in the desert composing refined verse; his message was a blunt ram against well defended gates protecting entrenched powers, and it must be heard that way.  It must be understood metaphorically, as John was not addressing the alteration of topographical features.  Yet, because it must be understood metaphorically, we perhaps too readily lose the forceful power of John’s words regarding our contemporary personal and ecclesiastical lives.

Jesus expanded this in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:38-42.  In a context of coertion, where one was compelled, Jesus said to give two.  We might term this radical generosity.  Though it is a different situation than John was addressing, there is still the noteable 1:2 ratio of giving and response.

Paul, in II Corinthians 8:1-15, concludes that the principle that was to govern inter-church relationships is equality.  Large, wealthy churches who gather much would not have too much, and small churches that gather little will not have too little.  When is the last time you heard that preached from a pulpit?

Radical equality, indeed.

Did John, Jesus and Paul not intend that their words be taken at face value, that the church is to live in a radical equality, a radical generosity?  One might think that it would take an artful exegesis to avoid the force of these texts in the life of the church; on the contrary, most of the church lives in ignorance of these texts and their import.  I certainly have no priviledge in this; I have missed it all of my life until recently.

And none of this is to be enforced by any rule, tithe, regulation, or redistribution structure the goal of which is to level the economic status of individual Christians.  Paul is very clear in II Corinthians 8 that participation is voluntary, not coerced.  Any notion that the church should end up with anything like a typical leftist social structure of wealth redistribution is to patently misunderstand all three (cf. Paul’s analogy of gathering different amounts of manna, as mentioned above.)  Neither is it a typical conservative structure with the goal of individual wealth accumulation in which the public good is accomplished as a by-product.  Yes, individuals must accumulate wealth in order to have sufficient to give, but the purpose is not the benefit of the individual; rather, it is the good of the entire community.

This may be something which has never been seen before on a wide scale, and where practiced locally may not long survive in integrity.  It is an organization that works best in weakness, dependent on the individual discernment and voluntary compliance of all of its members.  Yet, there clearly must be a superstructure that can oversee and balance intra-church relationships.  That was Paul’s role in the various churches he oversaw.

Many questions arise in considering how to implement this.  The most profound is that the focus of the church must change.  Individuals within a single church must think of each other as equals.  Individuals and leaders within a church must consider other churches, large or small, regardless of geographic boundaries, as peer.  Trustworthy and broken inter-church leadership must be in place to balance the needs and correct abuses.  I hesitatingly conclude that what is needed is true apostolic leadership; my hesitation is that many today want to claim such, and I mistrust the selfish motivations of at least some, if not many.

Without doubt this sounds like the stuff of a hopelessly idealistic fantasy that is destined for swift, decisive failure.  I know that.  What I cannot escape is that this is the state of the church which John, Jesus and Paul desired to realize.

The leadership of the church is the pivot on which this can or cannot be implemented.  The primary focus almost certainly must be the care of one’s own church and its gain, in numbers of members and/or income; that is not wrong per se.  Where most fall short is that they do not consider others as equals, rather, competing within a given market for members, whether that market is geographical or, increasingly, on the Internet.

Our eschatology also has a direct influence on our charity.  If we think we are all “going to heaven,” that is, that we will be transformed to a totally different spiritual existence, in a totally different place or state of being, in which God will set all things right there and then, there is little impetus to drive for justice and equity now.  If however we understand that God is about renewing this earth, that this earth is the locus of redemption, of salvation, that the kingdom of God is about reclaiming domination over this earth, and that the church is to begin to live and act now toward the eventual culmination of that kingdom here, our understanding about how we should act radically shifts.

In my view the Incarnation and our promised resurrection forcefully bear testimony to the latter eschatology.  Jesus took a human nature, which he did not have previously, in order that we might participate in his life, his nature, which we could not previously.  When Jesus became human, humanity became part of the Godhead, which nature he will never lose.  He became human to redeem, to reclaim, to renew, to save, this earth.  When Jesus was resurrected, he was resurrected on this earth, though his nature was changed.  Our destiny in resurrection is to be as he is, on this earth.

Finally, the scope of our thinking and our action must be global; we know too much to restrict regionally.  As I have written elsewhere in this blog, the implication of the parable of the good Samaritan is that there is no one on this earth that we cannot call a neighbor, to whom consequently we owe a debt of love.

This is but a summary sketch of my thoughts to date.  Much more can and should be said on these and numerous other points.  To be continued as I develop this further, in the meantime constructive comments are welcome.

I just found this NPR review on the University of Illinois, Springfield, through which I am studying philosophy online. I am in my fourth year of study. UIS has a very good program; the standards are high, and the profs know their material. I would highly recommend it for someone looking for online study in analytic philosophy.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16638700

China threatens ‘nuclear option’ of dollar sales

China threatens to trigger US dollar crash

Dollar falls as report suggests Beijing threatening asset sales

The second link has a note to the effect that 44% of the US debt is foreign owned; China is estimated to own about $900B, near enough to a trillion dollars.

From the third link:

“Asked about the Telegraph article in an interview with Fox News, Bush responded that China would be “foolhardy” to attempt to weaken the US currency in retaliation for US pressure over Beijing’s alleged currency manipulation. “If that’s the position of the government, it would be foolhardy for them to do this,” Bush said.

Foolhardy. Political bluster and rhetoric aside, that must be a very comfortable sandhole in which he is inverted if he really does not understand, or denies, that they have us on a leash and a choke collar. At least he didn’t deny that they could were they to so desire.

Will they exercise it? I don’t know that I would look for that right now, but that is not really the point. What it points out is that in borrowing from others we give them control over us. When the Chinese think they can get away with major moves against us, I think we can look for them to act at times. Yes, they partly need us to buy their goods, but when the rest of the global markets have begun to buy them as well, they don’t need us so much any more. They have real interest [sic] in flexing their economic power, and they are willing to play a long game.

Whether or not people will ever connect the dots that in our sumptuous lifestyle we have sold ourselves into slavery to others, and be willing to make some very hard decisions with personal impact, remains unknown. This is easy to blame on presidents and Congress; while they do control the fiscal policy, we ultimately hold them accountable, or not, for how they manage that. I take my share of blame, as I’ve not done so for most of my life. Yes, international finance is a very complex area, but one basic remains unchanged: the debt holder controls the debtor. Mostly I must say that I’ve chosen the easy route of not seriously questioning those that have been and are borrowing scads of money over the past decades. Enough.

For reasons I don’t quite understand this whole concept of integrated community is very much present to me now. I cannot escape or dismiss it in my own thinking about the role of the church. A question I must step back and answer for myself: why community? This is far from an adequate apologetic, but this is the gist of my thought at the moment.

I instantly responded to Scot McKnight’s (The Whole Gospel) definition of the church as an alternative society where justice and equity prevail. If the church is to live that out, we cannot but be involved in the practice of such in an intimate ongoing manner in our own lives.

I have been in one non-denominational church where that was actually well practiced, but the larger theology didn’t quite see to the formation of an eschatological, intertwined community as is being discussed today. All other churches with which I have ever been associated have had their share of problems with insider power trading. That begins at the top and filters down. Transparency at the top does not preclude that there may be hidden, unaccountable power brokers in the organization, but certainly if it does not begin at the top it cannot survive in the larger organization. When transparency does begin at the top, unless the power brokers are confronted the community cannot thrive, certainly not reach its highest potential.

Ultimately the purpose of community is mission. That includes preparation of those in the community for increasing intimacy with God; it also includes bringing others in as a setting in which the (trans)formation of the whole person can happen for the purpose of a life committed to the coming Kingdom.

There is a recurring word in the new monasticism book that I note: ‘mess’. Trying to set up a community polity cannot but be messy. It is relatively much easier to focus on doctrine than on the transformation of the intimate details of our thoughts and motives; that is why the traditional church cannot well approach community without profound transformation of those involved.

L, the single mother with four kids at home for whom we recently spontaneously gathered a sum to pay her electric bill, responded in an unusual way a few weeks ago. After her public assistance had come through, she said that churches have helped her so much over the years that she wanted to give back. She and Chris went through a store on a shopping spree, and L bought enough to fill up the trunk of the Civic. Because L has received food aid before, she knew exactly what to buy that would be most useful. When the food arrived at the local food pantry, they were in tears, as their shelves were very low. We were able to carry this news back to L so she would know just what her response had meant. That probably cost her something in terms of food for her family that we do not know, but it was important to her to be generous, even what beyond what she could probably afford.

A couple of weeks ago L called Chris and asked for a ride to a job interview; for reasons longer than bear telling here she had no money for a bus pass. Chris picked up and took her to the interview, and she got the job, starting the next day.

Last week F ended up with a severe and very painful infection in both ears. She went to the emergency room, but that did not clear it up. We found out late one evening that F was still in severe pain, so Chris took her to the emergency room again, waited that out, and then took her to get the prescriptions filled. That made a difference, and her ears are now recovering.

Sometimes it does not take much to help, a ride here or a few dollars there to get bus passes to get to work, yet without that those on the edge have trouble putting together even the little it takes to make meet the few ends they have. Mostly it takes being available. Yes, it is easy to be overrun if one is not careful, but we have found that with attentive discernment of the real needs that can be managed.

A generous community must respond in the crisis of the other, not in its own convenience.

F and M, the couple for whom All Saints recently threw a shower, did have their child, a little boy. He had a minor cleft palate, which was known ahead of time by means of ultrasound. On that basis F decided to give the child up for adoption, as she had no means to care for a special needs child. From the beginning she wanted to have an open adoption. The adoptive parents agreed — until on F’s final day in the hospital, July 16th, the final papers were signed, after which the adoptive father refused to give F their address. F, feeling completely betrayed, became very angry, and someone at the hospital overreacted and called CPS.

CPS came out about 11:00 PM the next day, July 17th. F and M were cooperative, if stunned, and things went reasonably well until F’s roommate became hostile and refused a drug test. Because of that the CPS worker decided to remove K, the 2 year old, from the environment that same night. If F and M could find a place to go with K they could remain together, otherwise K would be placed in foster care immediately. F called us at 11:45 PM, frantic that K was going to be taken away. Because of prior history there were no family or friends that would have been acceptable to CPS.

We made a quick decision to take them into our home, not knowing how that would go or just how long it would last. Chris was scheduled to leave for a reunion with her parents early the next day, July 18th, and that had to be cancelled at the last minute.

During their stay M’s car broke down several times and had to be placed in the shop. Once we had to tow it a few miles, done in cooperation with L and T, friends with a large truck. Chris took F many different places over the course of the weeks, even staying home from the office a couple of days early on to help stabilize F. I had to deal with a totally clogged sink one night when I came in about 9:15, disassembling the drain to unblock it. There were always considerations of refrigerator space, K trying to take food out of the kitchen, even a broken diaper on the carpet. Yet, with grace toward them we continued to extend them our welcome and we all survived quite well.

They were released with the case fully closed by CPS last Wednesday, August 2nd. They had found and set up an apartment pending the case resolution, so we were able to move them to their own place that same evening. We told them that we had given them that time with us because we believed in them, and that we felt that K being taken away was the worst thing that could happen to her. K has already had far too much upheaval in her young life. Both F and M were in tears, unable to fully express their gratitude.

F and M staying with us was not a situation without controversy for some. They are not married, but they have been together about a year and consider themselves a couple. These two have essentially no church background at all, so they do not have the same moral structures that we hold for ourselves. Had we rejected M because they are not married, neither of them would have understood that. In particular, F is Caucasian and M is Hispanic, and our rejection of him for whatever moral reasons almost certainly could not have been understood without some degree of racial overtone.

It is in these sorts of crisis times that we find ourselves most stretched and challenged to respond generously, without counting the cost to our time, our property or our space. We are glad we kept them with us. We will never know what might have been otherwise had we not taken them in, but we do know that they were touched in many ways which could not have happened had we not done so.

Spesso la costanza della verità si è mutuata, e si mutua, in una costanza culturale. Insomma riduce la verità in una prassi, una forma. D’accordo, la verità può e deve infatti esprimersi in cultura, ma ridurre la verità in cultura mostra una confusione fondamentale tra le due. Nessuna cultura può esprimere che una parte della verità. Ci si deve stare molto attenti alla tendenza di confondersi tra la propria espressione, la propria concezione della verità e la verità stessa, altrimenti si tende a credere che nel mantenere la culture si propaga la verità. Nel mantenere la cultura però senza rilevare di continuo dalla verità sottostante nuove espressioni culturali per la più ampia cultura attuale ci si dista sempre di più dalla verità. Questa tensione si manifesta spesso nelle chiese.

Oggi è stato difficile. È fallito il ventilatore CPU di lgw, che nello spegnere il sistema ha distrutto la strutture del disco. Ho dovuto trasferire il servizio su alfredo, perdendo la giornata intera. Almeno sembra stabile ora.

Non ho dormito bene stanotte. Mi sono svegliato verso le 0300 e non mi sono addormentato di nuovo fino le 0600. Di solito non ho un senso definito del perchè di tali periodi insonni. Era pure il caso ieri sera, ma in fondo la frase che mi girava per la mente era ‘sto perdendo qualcosa’. Questo weekend appena passato dai vecchi amici dell’AI m’ha veramente piaciuto. Sentivo una certa tensione che non faccio più parte della Chiesa di Cristo, ma a parte quello è stato un vero piacere rinnovare le amicizie e chiacchierare con gli italiani presenti. So che tramite il dialogare con WA, il leggere diverse opere, ed l’ascoltare i vari podcasts che ho trovato ho potuto mantenere la lingua italiana ad un livello abbastanza alto. Mi è stato molto interessante rinnovare quelle esperienze, e insomma… non le voglio perdere.

Most people confuse their culture for truth.

My wife recently purchased two new pillows. While looking at the selection, she noticed that the plastic covers on the pillows had all been slit so the “Do Not Remove” federal tag was protruding. When she queryed a store employee about that, he explained that customers would switch the pillows in the plastic covers, replacing a cheaper pillow with a more expensive one. The store had found it necessary to slit the covers to expose the tags; at checkout the tag was scanned to verify that the pillow itside matched the scan code on the plastic case.

My mother remembers that her sister found some money in the field one day during the Depression. Times were very tight on the family farm, and they well could have used it. My grandfather refused to spend it; they might find the rightful owner so the money could be returned. There has been a marked degradation in the ethics of the country over the 60 or so years since that time.

Where do we think it will end up in the next 60? And why do we not feel an urgency at the disintegration of our society? I suppose that the sense of ongoing normalcy for most of us, as our immediate circumstances are not particularly affected, belies what we cannot see.

New Year’s Eve I watched a video on the micro lending explosion that is having a dramatic effect on global poverty. As I reflected on the film in some discussion following, one notable point of the video is that the women that are taking the loans do so with the purpose of improving the lives of their families. While food is an immediate improvement, another is that many more children are able to go to school.

I learned recently that through Helps International, an NGO that works primarily in Guatemala, a remote grade school in Santa Avelina will be getting Internet access. I first gained access to the Internet in mid 1994; that a remote mountain village in Guatemala will be able to have access only 12 years later is astounding.

As these trends continue, the shift of global power over a couple of generations will probably be significant. They have a motivation to learn and improve economically that few have in the US.

My daughter is now 24, a graduate of SMU, and the operations manager of a high end retail boutique. She is presently working on her MBA. In short, she has an excellent beginning for a comfortable career. Gifting is therefore less about need and more about niche items that one does not always buy for oneself. One gift that always works between us is any sort of really good coffee.

This year I decided to gift a flock of chicks in her name from Heifer International. I was not particularly preoccupied about it, but I did not know what her response would be. I could not have been more gratified; she was instantly touched that a poor family somewhere had been given much needed aid, describing the gift as “warm and fuzzy.” She occasionally mentioned it until she left, even imitating the “peep peep” of young chicks.

We have a new gifting tradition, one that I expect to grow. Actively participating to improve another’s life precisely at the moment when we might be most tempted to think of ourselves seems to me the finest sort of gift.

Many of the specifics which McNamara discusses happened in the early and mid 60s, prior to an age when I could begin to understand them, yet the images, the events, the television new sound bites, are clearly part of my memory. The significance of the Cuban missle crisis was largely lost on me; at the age of 10, it was simply not possible to imagine the magnitude of events in play that could have destroyed me in an instant, or perhaps worse, over agonizing months.

As many others have noted, I remember quite clearly where I was when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot: I was at Caldwell Elementary in Garland, TX, in Mrs. Cody’s 5th grade classroom, when Principal Brank announced it over the PA system. I remember that Gary Brooks was weeping brokenly and had to be escorted from the room.

McNamara’s discussion of the events of those days brought back those memories, and so many more. To learn now that there were 160 nuclear warheads already in Cuba during the October 1962 crisis is a sobering jolt. That was brinksmanship at the highest stakes, and the US adminstration did not even know it.

10, 20, 50, 60, 100 megatons… all these numbers ran together, with no real idea of what they meant, beyond that the bigger the number more of us, or them, would die in a momentary bright flash. It was not until the early 80s reading Jonathan Schell’s Fate of the Earth that I began to understand something of what I had heard in my childhood. Schell’s detailed analysis of a 1 megaton bomb at Manhattan as ground zero stands as a landmark in my memory of just what could happen.

Considering the current world situation with massive global power shifts, and the stakes being entire cities or even nations, this dialog seems far more urgent than ever before.