...and I'm back.

I took a break for a while. It's hard to run when you're overweight, and it's hard on the knees. I did buy a good pair of running shoes before I started up running again recently. During the break I tried to stay focused on swimming. I've managed to keep at it, mostly consistently, and can churn through 1500 yards in an hour now. I don't force myself to do that non-stop, and I am working on technique and speed. The improvement in my speed through the water is starting to show. Last night I felt like running again. Finally I got out the door about a half hour after midnight. I walked and ran around the neighborhood, a distance that turned out to be 1.9 miles. Of that, I ran 0.9. I can feel the improvement swimming has produced. It's not huge, but I notice it. 8 miles down. 992 to go. 5 pounds down too! Yes! At least 60 to go still.

Running away from the weight

Next night. I think I'm going to like the Couch to 5K podcast from 5K101.com. I used the podcast from week 1 tonight and liked the coaching along the way. 2.8 miles tonight. 6.1 total, 993.9 to go.

Journey begun

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a 3.3 mile walk/jog after too long of too little exercise. About 4 weeks ago in a chance meeting with a friend I agreed to start swimming laps again twice a week with him. This has gone well and I've already felt the improvement in my sense of well-being. But both Monday and last Wednesday both of us were detained by other demands. And tonight, partly because I'm missing the exercise, I went "running" again for the first time in a long time. So here's my goal: I'm going to track my cumulative running (and walking) progress until I reach 1000 miles. 3.3 tonight/996.7 to go.

Religion in politics

So it's that time again, more or less. Last I was making "regular" entries to this blog President Obama was running for office, and now he's running for re-election. National elections in the USA bring out a lot of interesting, often strange, information about at least some of the candidates.

One of the candidates running for Republican nominee for President has said that abortion should not be legal because it is not in agreement with the laws of God (the Christian God). He, of course, completely entitled to that view as a private citizen, but as President of the US he must put such a view aside. The government of the United States is, by constitution and by intent of the country's founders, a secular government. And logic dictates that it must not be otherwise. In order to guarantee religious freedom to all of the country's citizens, and to uphold the right of each to freely exercise his/her religious practice, the government must be irreligious.

It is impossible for a committed monotheist to genuinely support pantheism, or atheism, or polytheism, or another monotheism. It may be possible for a pantheist or polytheist to genuinely support a monotheist, but there are certainly cases where this would not work (at least theoretically). No, a government, to ensure religious liberty (which implicitly allows religious variety), must act as a secular agent, without commitment to any specific religious position.

Furthermore, in such a pluralistic society, if any religious group dominates, it may seem right to them to make rules for society according to their religious mores. However, that majority would do well to remember that they may not always be the majority, and that the unfairness they dish out to minority groups likely will be visited back on them when another group becomes ascendant. Prudence demands fairness at all times. And fairness in a large, diverse society means that rules must accommodate the greatest number of citizens possible.

In the case of the candidate above, he is welcome to hold any position he likes about abortion, or any other matter. But his right to demand compliance with that position is limited to the one person he really has any control over: himself.

I want to blog about something...

...but I'm not sure what right now. It's been a busy day, one that included a 4-hour conference call. Dinner has been served, and kids are winding down for the night and it's time for me to get into the office and log more hours before I sleep. So right now I don't have anything formed inside that needs to get out and be said. It's funny how de-focusing being busy can be. Spread thin, limited attention, squeaking by, no margin. I try to create emotional margin in the midst of the activity, but there's nothing like time with nothing pressing to allow for space to think and gain insight.

I'm alive (it turns out)

Blogging... man, that seems so 2008, or you would think so to look at my blog. I've been busy, and I forgot about this little project, but I found it again now and it's time to start typing again. We'll see where it goes next. But first I have to go get my children from friends' houses.

Escape from "George-town"

By the age of 15 there were stirrings of the questions I would later ask, but for now they were buried by guilt and thus denied the benefit of honest inquiry. About that time the daughter of a family I hardly knew, but with whom my parents had lived for months, perhaps a year, came East to attend the same boarding school. Not having grown up with the other kids in the school, she was novel and she was also genuinely different for having grown up in Canada. Circumstances allowed us the opportunity to visit privately without the need for secrecy, and before too many weeks, a mutual crush had developed. But this crossed a line--the no-dating-until-after-high-school rule--and ultimately was coupled with my expressed doubts to justify my expulsion from boarding school.

There you go. That's one of my truly dark secrets; I was kicked out of boarding school.

By then my parents, with my two youngest brothers, then 9 and 3, had suffered the same fate, expulsion. Within months my remaining two brothers, ages 13 and 11, were also home. In retrospect this is fantastic, as I knew families still unable to contact sons and daughters who had forsaken "father and mother" for "the sake of the kingdom of God." Total BS, but that's how the conditioning makes you think.

I landed at Keene High School for the last 2 months of my junior year of high school and the whole of my senior year. I flourished academically because of discipline that had been instilled in boarding school. The first 3 days were overwhelming though, as I made the switch from 40 students in 1st through 12th, with my own class of 5, I think, to a high school with nearly 1800 students from 9th through 12th, and a graduating class of about 380.

My religious convictions gave me stability and a compass in this sea change. Here it seemed simple and clear; I was a Christian and (almost) everyone else was not, so decisions to form attachments or to be involved in activities were generally easy to make. Some of my choices then I wouldn't make now, but in general religion helped me survive psychologically without making me unduly mean or offensive, I think.

And at KHS I encountered the expectation of going to college for the first time in my life. That topic will be the starting point for my next entry.

Until then, peace. John