Bible Reading: Psalm 131(132)14-18

While thinking about the suffering of Haiti and preparing for a Bible commentary, I opened to this passage.

"Sion will be my resting place forever; in her will I dwell, for I prefer her. I will bless her with abundant provision, her poor I will fill with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her faithful ones shall shout merrily for joy. In her will I make a horn to spout forth for David; I will place a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon him my crown shall shine."


These are actual words spoken by God to King David, the pact where God promises that King David's descendants will always rule in Sion. You need to understand that God is always speaking of the present time and also the future, so there is the "here and now" meaning to King David and the Israelites, but also the "here and now" for their spiritual heirs and descendants. Thus Christians, such as those in Haiti, who are suffering today from the woes of the world can take some comfort in knowing that The Almighty God will never leave them, so long as they do not leave Him. Sion is now the spiritual Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, which since Jesus Christ is no longer a physical place but the place of global faith in God.

Rather than turning their back on God, I see the Haitians seeing Him with even greater clarity since the earthquake tragedy. Those who honor the pact with God, sworn by King David, will find that God never leaves them.

In the Bible the horn often symbolizes power and authority, as the King and the priests use it to make the great sound. But it also represents the cornucopia, the outflowing of abundance and goodness. The horn that spouts forth for David is not of noise but of the arrival of Jesus Christ. The more that one puts one's faith in God and in Jesus Christ alone, the more that the goodness that only Christ can bring will flow forth from that horn.

Worldly well being ultimately depends on human rationality, righteousness, charity and neighbor-first priorities... all of which are very much needed in the chaos that has delayed for an unacceptable amount of time the delivery of goods and assistance in rescuing to the Haitians. The more that everyone embraces the pact, so that not only those who suffer turn their faces to Jesus Christ in hope and solace, but also those who are empowered with worldly means to help them, the more that the horn with overflow with what is needed to live, but also with eternal life and righteousness. Honoring the pact with God is the job of not just those who suffer, but also those who do have what they need, and more. I hope that Haiti softens and converts the hard and arrogant hearts of many bureaucrats, aristocrats, politicians, and professional "do-gooders," such as NGO's.

When one does not turn one's own hands and feet over to Jesus Christ on an ongoing day to day basis, one stumbles over one's own bureaucratic and selfish thinking (even when "doing good") when disaster strikes. That is because one is not truly prepared to drop everything and let Jesus be Lord. How can one find a way around shipping and airport obstacles, and fallen concrete, on the first day, if one does not have hands already open in anticipation of the need?

I hope this helps.

Exercise examples and more context information

Based on what I wrote, imagine this.

1. You turn on "past TV" and watch the earliest of human development, where they first organized into groups and then at some point used weapons to war against other groups, for whatever reasons. You watch day after day of one group overpowering the other group and slaughtering everyone in the group, including, in fact, especially the infants. So one group would war and wipe out the other group: not armies but tribal family and clan based units. The whole objective of each conflict is to kill all of the others, probably because they competed for the same food. You watch day after day of these events over a period of thousands of years.

And then one day you notice one group declares war on another group, but instead of slaughtering them all, this winning group decides to keep the other group alive and force them to work for them. You applaud... and then you just realize that you've applauded the development of slavery.

2. You oppose inoculations against disease because you think something about them "causes" other ills, such as autism, or that they are a privacy imposition.

You turn on "past TV" and watch day after day of people walking around with even one disease, let's say smallpox because it is so visible. You can watch as it actually happened millions of individuals suffer from and die from the selected case study disease. So you can "be there" in true "reality TV" as every family loses at least one child, maybe more, to rampant disease, and entire families are wiped out. Like true "reality TV" you feel their pain and you say, "If only something could have been done." Your heart is wrung after watching let's say the hundredth episode of "past TV" of a smallpox infected person suffering and dying. You then flip the channels and listen in as generations of scientists wonder what caused the disease and work to develop cures, some of them primitive and totally wrong, while, as intellectual knowledge grows, others start to understand and work on cures. They start to develop inoculations. You applaud them. Huh?


With these examples of "past TV" you can structure your own logical imaginings of the day to day, like watching paint dry or a faucet dripping, of how humans really lived, and how they reached the conclusions and outcomes that they did. It puts your modern opinions within their proper context of what factually actually happened.


Think of any of the social, environment, moral or business issues we face today, and imagine what "past TV" would show you about those day to day experiences, and how humans without drama lived and adapted. Adaptation is different from evolution or enlightenment by the way. Humans adapt their behavior according to real circumstances, and that can occur within a moment in the blink of an eye or over generations.

Some terminology and concepts:

Quick adaptation is, for example, you change a driving habit instantly when you find one day you have an accident due to it (you may stop texting while driving after an accident). Slow adaptation is a group of people learn to grow different crops for food when the weather changes and they no longer have enough rain for what they used to grow.

Evolution differs because that would mean the people who used to eat the original food die out and only ones who can eat the new food survive and reproduce, so it is a biological outcome to a long time "opportunity" (an advantage or disadvantage that one's body must respond to through survival or not). So a bad opportunity (not enough rain to grow your crops) for evolution arises and one way that would be "solved" if adaptation is not used (because humans are too primitive) is that they stay in place and everyone dies out except the few people who can eat the local shrubbery. Evolution takes place biologically, while adaptation is mental. Humans adapt to the loss of rain and their original crop that they depend on by growing a new crop that is drought resistant or moving to a place where their original food can be found. Primitive humans and animals have evolution "imposed" on them when they lack the ability to act through adaptation. Thus they evolve by dying out until only the population that has the minority ability to eat what is available survives and passes on those genes.

Enlightenment is not "answers to problems" such as what to eat. Enlightenment is having the proper spiritual context for the ongoing human condition. For example, Jesus pointed out to the disciples that the lilies are the most beautiful of beings all on their own, without human adornment, and that the sparrows can find their own food. Jesus is enlightening the disciples about how much God proportionately loves humans for if he bestows the love of beauty and the finding of food on the humblest of creatures, how much more so does he love humans who are conscious and who know him? Jesus does not give a textbook exposition of the genetics of lily colors and spots or pointers on where the sparrows can find even more food. Thus moderns must stop thinking that "enlightenment" is "problem solving." It is not. Lack of that understanding is part of the "aliens with answer" and "psychics tell you what will happen" dead end trap of much modern thinking.

The human problem solving tools are:

1) Adaptation (change behavior)
2) Evolution (have circumstances of life and death imposed on you).

Enlightenment is not a problem solving tool.


So, by the way, go back to the modern person who opposes inoculations based on let's say an autism fear. I am not telling that person to stop being cautious or even to change their belief. What I am showing them is that they need to understand the other position fully. They need to understand the full context of consequences of no inoculation or spotty inoculation since it is not an "individual" decision. Past TV shows that it's called "public health" for a reason: disease management is not an "individual choice" or "individual risk" by its nature, even though free society to some extent respects individual non-compliance. What I am saying is that those who support more research or who have fears about inoculations, in that example, need to understand the context of risk profile and history for all, not just themselves, that they are making their assumed argument. If people truly understand their own history and the facts they find themselves cheering the very developments that they may later question, whether the questioning is legitimate or magical thinking.

Part of problem solving, via adaptation, is having the facts. Suppose the texting driver has an accident because she was distracted while texting and looked away from the road and crashed. She would reasonably stop texting. However, suppose her accident was caused because her tire exploded? Adaptation would then shift to ensuring that future tires are safe and properly pressurized, while not texting is a secondary adaptation because if she was not texting maybe she'd have a split second advantage as she fought to control the now out of control car. Improper adaptation would be to continue to have unsafe tires and to text, but to put a bigger bumper on the car. See, this is why people must have clear thinking about past and present reality, and primary and secondary causes and effects. This, actually, used to be taught in school :-) That's why I'm teaching you the terminologies and principles as they used to be taught in your average every day educational system to the young.

Great start in Washington; a suggestion here

I was totally delighted to listen just now to the open press wrap-up of the White House and Congressional meeting. I cannot be overly complimentary when I praise both the taking place of this meeting (which was structured according to working groups on key topics and issues) and the open dialogue and feedback at the conclusion. This was an extraordinary event and a fine role model for what I hope is just the beginning of a new way of doing business in America. The President and the members of the Senate and the House deserve a lot of praise.

Now, I have just one suggestion that I hope will make everyone’s job easier as they wrestle now with the very urgent and complex topics. I address this suggestion to both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, each with a slight twist but the same message.

Whenever our members of Congress contemplate legislation, it is natural to think first and foremost, “Can we pay for this and if so, how will we do so?” In fact, one of the greatest areas of unease is the feeling by conservatives that America has resorted to “printing money” and “throwing it at the problem,” and I share this unease. However, I am also sympathetic with those who argue that inaction is worse, as the economy continues to spiral further in crisis, than shelling out the money. Also, generations of politicians and bureaucrats, fueled by corporate mindsets, have grown up with the belief that “grown ups” always keep “how do we pay for this” in mind before contemplating any expenditure.

The problem is that if that attitude rules the entire analysis of a particular legislation or problem solving, it codifies a problem into only two possible solutions: spend money or not. As a result multitudes of other possible approaches fall off the table unnoticed. Consideration of “how to pay” has become a show stopper for doing the right thing because the “how to pay” argument overshadows problem solving too early in the process.

Legislators need to start the legislative process following a more classic approach to problem solving, which is open ended at the very beginning. In other words, they need to put all options for progress on the table, evaluate and refine them first and foremost by whether they are the correct, desirable and “right” thing to do. Consideration of “can we pay” and “how do we pay” must come later in the process. Let me give an example.

Suppose that the legislature needs to evaluate a specific health crisis, let’s say some sort of toxic compound poisoning has been discovered and there is an urgent need for new legislation to address this new crisis. (Stick with me on the example, even though I know that literally existing agencies and budgets would cover this scenario in reality). Instead, assume in my example that a totally new potentially dire but not yet proven dire scenario has come up that requires legislation and of course, by implication, funding.

If the legislators and their aides immediately jump into a “how do we pay for it” attitude, they cannot focus on the genuine extent of the need and all possible implications for solution. Those who are alarmed by the threat of the toxic compound will want to throw money at the problem. Those who are tight with the purse strings will be tempted to poo-poo the potential risk, arguing there is no proof that legislation or investment is needed. That is the danger of allowing money to set the stage for determining whether something needs to be done, or not.

In the ideal case committees do research and determine whether or not this problem exists in truth, and whether or not a solution is needed. THEN experts in this problem can put forth alternatives. Many of these alternatives might suggest creative ways to fund the legislation rather than budget busting straight out expenditure. Suppose in my scenario that a university is already doing research in this area. One solution might be to transfer government resources on temporary assignment to that university’s endeavor, rather than allocate new funding. So people in the educational sector already working (in theory) on research in this area now have a dotted line relationship to a program that is already funded, and the staff and their resources are now reassigned, and what they had been working on is demoted in priority. This is one example where a new legislative endeavor can be “funded” without the tradition approaches of allocating new budgetary funds and the problem of raising money or busting budgets.

Here is another example. Suppose that another country is already doing research in this toxic compound problem. Why not consider an alliance, rather than fund a parallel effort? Again, one could allocate some new funds for additional staff, or reassign, or “swap” with the other country for use of their resources.

It is crucial, especially in this financial crisis, that the President, legislators, their aides, educational institutions and corporations start first and foremost with dialogue on what is correct and what needs or must be done, and leave funding as secondary, as counterintuitive as that sounds. If one decides first and foremost that something is a genuine legislative need, with allocated resources of some specific type needed, one can then secondarily consider options that may not involve budget spoilers or new allocated funds at all. It can also force a fresh look at existing budget priorities, where the responsible agencies just have to push something further down the stack as a greater problem arises.

My suggestion is actually the MOST fiscally conservative approach, rather than the worried dollar signs in the head from the very beginning approach. That is because one is open to a host of alternative ways to procure and provide the resources needed for the new legislative initiative. Sometimes one can craft a better law and budget if one MUST do something but there is no NEW money to do it. That is because one can consider governmental partnerships, private initiatives, swaps and alliances with corporations. What if, for example, a private company was given an extraordinary tax break in return for using their existing staff to work on this problem? Some laboratory that was working on pure research gets the assignment to work on the new potential toxic compound problem and they reallocate their staff from pure to targeted research, in return for a tax break or other non-budgetary incentive.

So it’s actually not the most “adult” thing to think “how do we pay” first and foremost. The most adult thing is “what must we do (if anything) about a particular problem, and what is the correct approach with the most hoped for results?” Then one figures out how to procure the resources and staffing. It is extremely difficult to overcome the deliberate and unconscious programming that has taken place in everyone’s mindset, I understand that all too well, seeing it become a disaster of missteps in decision making in government and society for decades now. It is especially hard with entitlements discussions, where hardly anyone discusses what the right thing to do is, and instead, they just dissolve into quarrels and intransigent positions about money, such as in health care and social security. But if you continue to do that you totally miss out on 1) what is right and essential to do and 2) many alternative ways to do it. Both sides harden into an expensive proposal with one side saying yes and the other side saying no.

This happened with Social Security in the Bush administration. President Bush set his heart on a “free market” approach to actually investing some of Social Security in the money markets (heaven forbid). This is an example of where the President and legislators hardened into one proposal rather than starting by looking at comprehensive reform, where needed. This is because both sides assumed that it is the political “third rail” of politics AND that reform can’t be afforded. Therefore the President thought he was peeling off a piece that would be innovative and helpful, but not touch the third rail or “cost” anything. Can you imagine what would be happening now, in the financial meltdown, if Social Security were part of it? But I’m not criticizing President Bush for trying to peel off doing at least “something” that he felt avoided the third rail of budgetary explosion of costs, and political fighting if people feared reduced benefits. It seemed logical to him, but that logic is erroneous. It’s not his fault in this area because he has walked into a hardened environment of thinking that we must think “first” of “how much will it cost” and “how do we pay for it” before even determining if “it” is the right thing to do. So everyone is somewhat bipolar about it. They tiptoe around the need to do the right thing if it is going to be costly or they then swing to the other extreme and just warm up the printing press and manufacture some greenbacks. As a result very poor decisions are made one after the other because they are not based on the facts of the problem and the need to invest in some action.

I hope that you understand what I am explaining here and find it helpful. It is crucial that people try to change this mindset right away. In classic problem solving one does start with an assumption that is totally free of any consideration of funding. In other words, one must spend at least some time in the “problem definition” and “solutions exploration” stages of just assuming “money is no object.” It is only by assuming that in the beginning that one can determine what the “right” thing to do is. It is after the problem is defined and alternatives identified and sketched that one introduces the “resources needed” part of the process, where implications for investment become identified. After that is done then people can start to identify either staged or modified implementations based on budget realities or, as I am suggesting, how to do the “right thing” without classic check writing or money printing approaches, as I demonstrate in the toxic compound example, where several solutions can be reasonably pursued that are not budget busters yet are highly targeted and effective “investment”.