The Trouble with Noise

My friend and I pulled weeds in the garden in the morning. We watered our plants and erected some new tethers for the flailing peas. Then we made pancakes in the kitchen while listening to Julie London and Nat King Cole. It was serene.

The prior day's conversation with a roommate flashed through my mind--mutual frustration over loud, antagonistic sentiment surrounding the day's controversial issue. We heard it from friends and teachers. It was talked about in the stores. It was blasted across the internet with characteristic rage. It was everything work in the garden and jazz in the kitchen were not; it was hostile.

Unfortunately, it wasn't unusual. It was consistent with today's gaudy, self-aggrandizing culture. In this, an era of rollicking music, finger-pointing politics, boisterous newsfeeds, and pervasive individualism it was wholly expectable.

But none of that came to mind as I talked with my roommate. All I could think was that it was noisy...and I was getting a headache.

Popular music rumbles with synthesizers, bass, and even animal sounds. Katy Perry roars louder than a lion. Dierks Bentley gets drunk on a plane. Imagine Dragons screams about radioactive stuff. Sia swings from chandeliers (though I happen to like this last song).

Politics is no less attention-whoring. Choose Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh on the right or Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow on the left; the common denominator is a penchant for attention-grabbing antics and shallow debate.

Haven't had enough? Scroll through your Facebook newsfeed: today's "it" topic is Kate Kelly's excommunication. Yesterday it was Bowe Bergdahl, and before that "Frozen" conspiracy theories. Throngs flood Facebook and Twitter with crass status updates, stereotypical memes, and links to vapid blog posts.

Can you hear yourself think over all the screaming?

The trouble with noise is that loud voices drown out sensible ones. Thoughtful minds rarely need to yell to get their point across. You won't see good ideas staring you down in all caps, and they aren't interested in competing with trending topics for likes and shares.

The truth is right where you left it, in the eaves, on the sidelines, waiting to be discovered but unwilling to fight with divas and drama kings for the stage. If you really want the truth you've got to go find it. It won't come to you over the airwaves, on the television screen, or in the latest hullaballoo on Twitter. It might come to you in academic journals, histories, or quiet moments when you meditate and talk to God.

There is place for noise in our world, but have we become so attuned to it that we've forgotten the sound of silence?

11 Books You Should Read in 2014

Reading has long been one of my favorite pastimes, but it is difficult to find time to read for pleasure when I am smothered by a stack of required textbooks and essays. I set a goal to read 15 books in 2013. I fell a little short, but no bother: I'm in the middle of D.Q. McInerny's promising Being Logical, and I will soon pick up Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Here, then, are 11 books I read in 2013 which you should peruse this new year. And if you've read something great, please leave a comment—I love suggestions.

(1) Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky's gripping classic considers the meaninglessness of responsibility in a culture in the clutches of nihilism. Who is to blame for the brutal murder of two hapless women in St. Petersburg? Is it communism? Is it Russia? Is it Raskolnikov, the story's sorry protagonist? Crime and Punishment is an exhausting journey through the muddled mind of a man betrayed by his actions and encouraged by a complacent culture.

(2) Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would, Chad Thompson

Many Christians aren't living up to Christ's injunction to love all men, including gay men and lesbian women. That's the conclusion Thompson reaches in this important book. National trends seem to indicate increasing polarization between Christians and gays. Somewhere in the middle is the love and light of Christ, often withheld from or rebuffed by one or both groups. As followers of Christ, Christians should be at the forefront in offering love, understanding, and empathy to homosexuals. 

(3) The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

The chilling conversations between Screwtape and nephew Wormwood, both devils enlisted in the service of Satan, will make you think twice before deliberately engaging in sin. Petty gossip isn't all that petty and white lies are actually pretty colorful, we discover, as Lewis challenges the casual Christian to think about the meaning of his or her deliberate actions. In an increasingly immoral world we have to choose sides. Complacency is victory for the devil and his minions.

(4) 13 for Luck, Agatha Christie

This delightful collection of short stories from the undisputed Queen of Crime is sure to please. Revel in the genius of Hercule Poirot as he solves "The Market Basing Mystery." Wonder at the wisdom of Jane Marple in "The Blue Geranium." And don't be surprised when Inspector Evans uncovers an "Accident." Classic Christie, through and through.

(5) Night, Elie Wiesel
Words are insufficient to describe the story Wiesel himself said couldn't be told in words. His haunting narrative will hardly seem incomplete, though—in barely 100 pages he explicates the atrocities and agonies of Nazi prison camps. Why does he do it? Silence aids the enemy. Integrity demands that fallen Jews are not forgotten.

(6) Time and Psychological Explanation, Brent Slife
Western culture takes for granted its assumption of a world defined by linear time. How might we treat each other differently if we rejected this assumption? In what other ways might one interpret the world? Slife's masterpiece is an important alternative voice in a field and culture dominated by deterministic thinking.

(7) Following Christ, Stephen Robinson

The invitation to follow Christ is an invitation to have a meaningful relationship with Christ. Robinson illustrates this central theme of Christianity through a series of engaging parables. Atonement is not merely some historical event we turn to in times of crisis. Rather, Atonement is the active, vibrant love of a Savior who understands. He loves, He heals, He cares, and He forgives in the here and now. 

(8) Quiet, Susan Cain

Introverts often feel alone in a culture obsessed with "the extrovert ideal." Susan Cain demystifies the supposed superiority of extroversion by showing how other cultures view introverts. Extroverts and introverts, Cain argues, should build on each other's strengths, and both personality types should be nurtured and appreciated. Show some love for the introverts in your life: give them Quiet.

(9) The Double Helix, James Watson
The famed scientist who, along with a group of colleagues, discovered DNA is equal parts humorous, scientific, and carefree in The Double Helix. For non-chemists like me it will be hard to hurdle through the technical humdrum, but Watson's conclusions are worth the abbreviated wait. His camp's sheer joy upon discovering DNA is matched only by the well-deserved posthumous nod to Rosalind Franklin, who died before the others were awarded Nobel Prizes. 

(10) Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
Sophie's whimsical journey through the history of philosophy is a welcome introduction to a discipline rarely studied and even less rarely understood. It's been said, "You can either do it well or you can do it poorly, but you can't not do philosophy." Here, Gaarder does it well.

(11) Turning Freud Upside Down, Jackson, Fischer and Dant
The problem with Freud and most of his contemporary cohorts is they don't account for human agency. Most people feel their choices imply responsibility. Most people believe they are guided or at least created by a higher power. Modern psychology rejects these assumptions and postulates instead a world defined by necessary determinism. The title is an allusion to Isaiah's prophecy that the restoration of the gospel would turn upside down conventional thought. This essential volume demonstrates that to be the case.

The Gentle Savior

Hi friends. It's been a while since I last posted. These are some thoughts I shared on Facebook earlier today - thoughts I hope will get you thinking about your own relationship with the Lord. For that reason I'm sharing them here:

 

I've just been thinking - aren't you glad God generally communicates with us gently? How many of us really want to be shaken with a heavy hand or shouted at or kicked in the pants with some dramatic revelation? Isn't it a blessing to be caressed by the Spirit, touched by His love, revived by His light? Why should I want for bold, sensational, in-your-face communication when I can enjoy the breathtaking beauty of His quiet love? As I work through struggles I realize I am most grateful for precious, intimate moments with the Lord - moments characterized not by melodrama but by quiet meditation.

"He Never Missed a Day"

Confession: I'm not very good at writing in my journal. Not very good at all.

So bad, in fact, that fully nine months of my mission experience apparently never happened; at least I've got no journalistic evidence to prove it. We won't talk about my attempts at journaling before my mission, but the words 'pathetic' and 'grossly inconsistent' come to mind.

Why, despite my repeated failures, is keeping a journal important to me? I was very young when I first heard this statement by President Spencer W. Kimball—

I promise you that if you will keep your journals and records, they will indeed be a source of great inspiration to your families, to your children, your grandchildren, and others, on through the generations...those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives.

That statement made a lasting impact on my impressionable young mind, and I've since felt duty-bound to record my stories and insights. This blog is one effort to fulfill that prophetic—and now personal—vision.


No, the blurriness and black marks are not
a trendy feature on Picmonkey; they are a
consequence of dropping my camera at Lagoon

I realized recently that another statement made an equally lasting impact on my young mind. This statement surfaced again and again in a variety of settings, but one phrasing of it was, "Once Johnny started keeping a journal at 14 he never missed a day."

Woah, Johnny—never missed a day, huh? Well then surely I could do the same!

Well I couldn't. And I didn't. And I began to wonder if Johnny really never missed a day and I started to resent him if he hadn't. My inconsistent journaling on my mission stemmed from an erroneous belief that if I missed a day I could play catch up the next. The problem with this line of thinking is that one day inevitably piles up into 17 or 18. It didn't take long to get overwhelmed by how far I'd fallen behind. In trying to keep up with Johnny I couldn't even keep up with myself.

I caught myself falling into the same error upon returning home. After missing a couple of days I was tempted to play the familiar game of catch up. But something stopped me. True doctrine stopped me. My burgeoning understanding of the Savior's Atonement rescued me from the fallacy of wrong thinking. The Savior doesn't expect me to catch up on missed opportunities any more than he expects a repentant sinner to fork over back-payments on tithing. He expects me to start over, not to languish forever in a miserable game I never win.

Years from now if you're reading my journal you'll notice a break between July 9 and July 11, 2013.

Yes, I missed a day. But finally, mercifully, I didn't miss the point.

The Words We Speak

My history and philosophy of psychology class has introduced me to a new way of thinking. What if the words we speak carry power beyond the energy it takes to utter them? What if the ideas we hastily subscribe to and share—even if false—permanently impact our thinking?

They do. Consider how often you find yourself saying something like this—

I wonder what caused Amy to do that.

Here we assume that Amy is a passive object acted upon by some stimulus which caused her behavior. Most of us will agree that if Amy robs a bank she is responsible for her crime. But almost in the same breath we will regurgitate some intellectual slop about how Amy's upbringing or genes or stressful work environment or difficult relationship caused her behavior. We don't feel comfortable saying Amy is not responsible for her decision. But we feel equally uncomfortable believing what we say—that Amy indeed chose to rob the bank and that she could have chosen otherwise. 

Either our words don't match our beliefs or our beliefs don't match our words.

What if we said this instead?

I wonder what her reasons were for doing that.

Here we acknowledge that Amy has reasons for robbing the bank. Yes, her circumstances contributed to her decision; how could they not? But they didn't cause anything. Amy chose to rob the bank. She could have chosen differently.

We rob the human race of dignity when we reduce a man to his behavior. We demoralize man in his search for meaning when we deny the reality of his agency.

Let us not through the words we speak offer man the toxic binge of behaviorism. Let us instead share doctrine.

True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. (President Boyd K. Packer—Little Children, Ensign Nov. 1986)