Aspirin Is The Best Painkiller

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I have a pretty high pain tolerance, and I don't usually take something to dull pain. Two weeks ago, while running electrical wire to the workshop in my back yard, I smashed by left index finger, and I didn't even ice it. It's still tender, and it reminds me that I smashed it, but I didn't take anything for it, whiskey or oxycodone, and I'm fine. Sometimes however I do take painkillers, not because I can't do without them but because I can't do something I must do while the pain persists. I need to work sometimes when the pain interferes, and so I find that, in a pinch, since I don't rely on painkillers that aspirin serves me best. In many ways, although it is one of the original and simplest of painkillers, it is superior to all others contrived by people. It is natural, and it is simple, and simplicity is often the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo da Vinci). Unlike some of the other medications, aspirin technically never expires in its ability to kill pain even when it changes form. Finally, it's so easy to find and cheap to make, that if you can get away with using it, it's really the best bet and the surest, even if it's not quick and even if you must take multiple doses.

From a cost-benefit perspective, aspirin is the cheapest way to kill pain. I mean, they even put aspirin in some of the other pill cocktails, and you can get generic aspirin anywhere any time; we even have it in some of our first aid kits. When I do the aspirin lab in chemistry, we always compare a new bottle to an expired one to show them that drugs don't technically "expire"; they change into something else. Aspirin is easy and cheap to make, and it's not bottled with a special brand. It is useful everywhere, and it's even sold by Bayer for heart disease. Sure, like all drugs, it comes with possible health risks, and dulling pain isn't as good as eliminating the reason why you hurt in the first place, but if you can kill pain with the cheapest and most ubiquitous pill available, that's a huge win. We need other drugs because most people overuse pain killers, and some people abuse prescriptions. Even when I was seriously injured years back, they only put me on ibuprofin, but you can also take aspirin WITH some other painkillers and it won't interfere with them, making aspirin the best, the least likely to cause dependence, and something that always CAN work, even if it doesn't clear up everything or at least everything completely. Multiple doses are much cheaper than other drugs, but we like to pay for the convenience of taking one pill all day, and you pay for it in more ways than money. We like to kill pain quickly, and aspirin isn't that quick, but it's also the least toxic way to kill pain in cells.

Aspirin is derived from an all-natural source. Long ago, old wives knew that if you chewed on willow bark it would dull pain, and eventually scientists recovered salicylic acid, the active ingredient, from willow as the causative agent. This means that the main precursor to aspirin is not only all-natural, but it's also 100% organic. Aspirin itself is then artisanal, because it's manufactured by people from the salicylic acid through an acetylation reaction. This is done because salicylic acid is irritating to the stomach. So, the manmade derivative is "gentler" on the stomach by pre-reacting it with something to keep it from reacting with you in a way that you don't desire. Of course other pain killers are even more gentle, and willows don't make salicylic acid to make our lives easier, but aspirin is made from concentrated vinegar and willow bark extract, which sounds like something you'd find at Whole Foods next to the wheatgrass. Both of its ingredients are perfectly safe for people, but it gets vilified anyway. In our culture now that potted plants and macrobiotic food, vegan diets, bikram yoga, and the plethora of esoteric solutions, aspirin is really the only natural and pure and vegan source to kill pain among the pills produced for pain. I know there are other things that work too that are not pills, and you can always suck willow bark if that floats your boat, but it really deserves a resurgence in this community under those auspices.

When aspirin "expires" it's still useful. Acetyl-salicylic acid breaks down by the release of the acetyl group as aforementioned, leaving its predecessor- salyicylic acid, which is also a painkiller. You can tell if you're aspirin is going bad because when you open the cap you'll be able to smell vinegar, which is evidence of the reverse reaction. It's why they sell the bottle with a cotton plug, so that the cotton reacts with the air rather than the pills and keeps the pills in useful condition longer. Even then, it just changes the painkiller from one to another. Sometimes when I take other painkillers, I don't feel like they're working, and they don't seem to have any effect at all. However, aspirin, when it expires, turns into a different painkiller, and even though it's weaker it's still going to dull pain. Friday morning I awoke with a headache left over from Thursday night, and when I got to work, I took some acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) and within a few hours I felt fine. Now, the bottle says the pills expired in 2014, but I know that it's still a painkiller even if it's not the one I think it is on the bottle. For this reason, I think stockpiling aspirin is your best bet. Ok, maybe you need aleve or excedrin normally, but those medications really do stop killing pain when they expire, so they just make your urine more toxic if you take them after they expire. At least aspirin will still help dull your pain even if it's years after the bottle says it's bad. When other drugs change form, they cease to be painkillers, and maybe they become more dangerous derivatives than the pain you desired originally to dispel.

Despite its advantages, aspirin continues to take a back seat. It's inconvenient, weak, passe, and just not what people desire, not when you can take something powerful or if you're addicted either to the substance itself or the money you can make selling pills illegally. Nobody deals in aspirin after market, and I'm the only person I know who stockpiles aspirin, but that's one of my favorite labs to teach. We extract willow bark, make aspirin, and test the pills and show that the natural product is present in the pills and even moreso as they degrade. It's an easy test, it's a quick lab, and it is important because some students will find themselves giving "expired" medication in a clinical setting and need to know that the expiration date is really the date on which they can no longer guarantee that the medication contains 100% of the dose of the product we purchase. It may still be useful, and as far as I know aspirin is always useful. It worked for me Friday, despite being expired almost FOUR YEARS AGO. Next time I'll experiment with an older bottle, and I'll continue to show to classes for years to come that aspirin pills still contain aspirin long after you would normally toss them aside. Maybe I like aspirin so much because it reminds me of me- that somehow something useful can be resurrected from me, even if I don't feel useful or even if other people decide they'd rather try elsewhere.

I Hope You're Happy

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Thursday morning on the radio, the DJs were talking about the three people you will love in your life, about heartbreak, and about learning from loss. Before they finished, I turned off the radio, because all I could think about was the woman who broke my heart in 2013 and how much I miss us. It's funny because my friend had to persuade me to even date her, and if he had not, I wonder what I would feel, what I would write, and what I would do in the evenings. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and wherever you go, I hope you're happy. Of course, I hoped that we'd be happy together, but interestingly enough I discovered with this one that I really did love her. I mean, I could have burned her, burned us, given her the ultimatum I gave another woman when I first moved to Vegas, and as much as i don't think she'll do better, I didn't want to do that. I hope that her life is amazing, even if she's not mine anymore. Imagine my surprise then to arrive at work and find that youtube suggested based on my history that I watch the following:

I think it's funny that I even watched this video. I only did because my late friend Tracie loved Blue October. Now, Tracie and I were never going to be together. She was married when we met, and she walked a path that didn't even approximate where I wanted to go. Maybe she wanted to go where I wanted to go, but she didn't want it enough to make the major and essential changes for that. Nevertheless, I wanted her to be happy. In May of 2011, when I went to South Park CO to visit her, she was very surprised by my reactions. First off, I didn't approve of her gentleman friend even though she thought he was dreamy, but she eventually came to understand and even agree that her cowboy boyfriend cared more about his cattle and was only interested in riding her. Secondly, at the bar which was the only place to eat in town after 7PM, some rich yokel made a disparaging comment about her, and my friend Jay had to physically restrain me from beating the crap out of him. See, he owned like almost everything you could see, and if I'd taken him behind the Louvre, it would have made her life difficult there. I wasn't going to date or marry Tracie. I found her physically attractive, because she wasn't a good potential partner, but I did care about her and want her to be happy. Not necessarily at my expense, but none of these things cost me overmuch, and I was willing to take those steps if possible if it made her life better or gave her better opportunities even though my "love" for her wasn't romantic.

I wrote about this before in March of 2017 in "The Pain of Love". You hope they're happy. I mean, I even pray sometimes that, if the woman for whom I ache isn't coming back, she will forget about me completely because that will make it easier for her to be happy and be happier in the life she's chosen. Unlike some other writers and singers and poets, I don't want her to think back and wish she'd stayed; I hope she's happy, and that if she truly desires what she's pursuing that it will bring her the happiness she hopes it will bring her. For that to blossom as it ought, it's better if she does forget about me, completely, and dedicate herself to the life and people that she chose to love instead, not because she hates me or because I want her to but because she can give them all of the love that she possesses. I know this isn't the conventional thing, but it is the quixotic thing- to love pure and chaste from afar. You see, Don Quixote wasn't doing what he did for the servant girl because he wanted her to fall in love with him. He did it because that's what he believed chivalry demanded of a man- to do what is right especially for women.

Love is a misunderstood and misdirected phenomenon with most people, but true love always looks the same. IN a letter John Steinbeck wrote to his son John wrote about two kinds of romantic love. The first is a selfish one that serves the ego of the person who professes love, one that reaches out and says that no matter what you'll be together. It does not usually lead to respect, honour, or happiness. The second is what everyone thinks people mean when they talk about love. It calls upon us to be the very best versions of ourselves that we can manage. It looks toward the other person, often bringing forth goodness and wisdom that the giver did not know they possessed. That kind of love sees the other person with an eye single to the glory of God and desires the best for that person whatever that means. It's the kind of love that God has for us- that He is willing to let us wander and make mistakes and deny and reject Him and then still offers to rescue and redeem us. Now I don't think God expects us to act as Savior to those who hurt us; that's Christ's purpose. However, He does expect us to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us, to welcome back the prodigal even if we choose to give what we have to those we love who remain faithful. Real love, charitable love, the kind of eros that elevates men and really cements people together into families and an entity of eternity in His eyes loves the person even if they hurt us and hopes that wherever they wander their route leads them to happiness and peace. I know from reading CS Lewis that there are four loves, and eros is the lowest, but if it really is love, then it uplifts and lifts up those we claim to love to a better place.

Most people don't really love other people as much as they claim, and most people desperately hope to discover that they're the exception to the rule and that people who claim to love them really mean it. Even then, they don't know what it means to love those who hurt us, but it's what this song by Blue October named "I Hope You're Happy" and Journey's "Worlds Apart" really mean. You still love them, not the way you did, not to get together with them, but you still care for and about them. You hope that things work out, you won't desert them, not that they have claim to the same kind of things that they did before, but you really did care, you really did love them, not in the sappy, selfish, storybook way, but in the way that God wants us to love others- to wish for their best even if you derive no benefit from it. We remember them because they mean something to us, and we care about them because caring about them is caring about us, about our story, about our common heart, about our common aspirations back from when we were together. We hope they're happy, even if they're not with us. Not a day goes by that I don't think about this woman, but I don't hate her or wish her ill. Like the Beast, I have finally learned to love, and although I may not have earned her love in return, maybe the enchantment on me that makes me undesirable, untenable, and unaffable will fade in time and people will understand as months turn into years that I love them even if I don't see them anymore or talk to them ever again. I learned things about myself because she came. I will always be grateful to her that she helped me see who I really am, what I really believe. I hope you're happy, at peace, and prosperous wherever you are.

Spokesmen for Science

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I tracked down a screen shot I found on the internet this week to verify its veracity and was pleasantly surprised.  Apparently, a viewer wrote to demand that Mike Rowe be fired from his job narrating “How the Universe Works” because of personal views that the viewer found inconsistent. You can read Rowe’s post on his blog here.  I found it surprisingly scholarly and enlighteningly introspective both of science itself as well as those interested therein.  However, Rowe is not considered by many to be a subject matter expert in science, and most of my students will eagerly confess when I ask them next week that they know about Bill Nye the Mechanical Engineering guy.  Perhaps the most annoying observation from Rowe’s response is that his detractor objected based entirely on emotion but claimed to be a science aficionado.  More importantly, I think that Nye’s followers are likely to detest Rowe’s show, because Nye’s show is childish and emotive, with very little in the way of substance.

I watched Bill Nye for the first time this past weekend, and I was mortified.  I found the episodes to be cartoonish, pedantic, and condescending.  They also seemed obsessed with fire and explosions, as if that’s all we do in chemistry.  The only redeeming factor was Candace Cameron as a counterbalance to Nye’s off the wall antics.  The episodes were odd, in the way that most things from that period are like hammer pants and tie dye, and I felt less intelligent watching them.  I can hardly believe that so many students considered that to be a good science show, as it dealt so little with scholarship and so much with pageantry.  Contrarily, Mike Rowe’s program is far more scholarly (and hence more dry and less appealing to young viewers), but his discussions are more intellectual and less incendiary than those of Bill Nye.  Nye’s show is showmanship over substance.  They gave very little in the way of scholarly discussion of mechanisms and methods, but they gave recipes to perform wiz-bang experiments at home.  While careful to encourage safety, the things they did were NOT things you’d do at home with the very clever disclaimer “Don’t try this at home” which of course always works…  I think the attachment to Nye is nostalgic and emotional, since there’s no math, no background, no homework, and no scholarship.  People who like his show probably fit into the category of people who thought that Adam Sandler and American Pie were great but who might cringe to rewatch those movies today.  It was a pleasant part of childhood, before science meant WORK and only meant entropy.  They like Nye because of an emotional attachment to fond memories of yesteryear.

Both of these presenters are narrators and just that.  Whereas Bill Nye, who has a BS in Mechanical Engineering, professes and allows you to think that he’s a “science guy”, Mike Rowe makes no pretense at being anything more than a narrator.  These men both know far less about science than I do, but the people who produce the show have scientific consultants who help them prepare programs.  Once written, the episodes are read from a teleprompter like most television programs and scripted like every movie.  It’s not like these men extemporaneously address the audience based on years of experience and the expertise accompanying credentialed degrees.  I mean, it’s like having Leonard Nemoy narrate who, although I’m sure very knowledgeable, only PRETENDED to be a science officer in Star Trek, which apparently keeps very few from assuming that Nemoy actually is a scientific expert.  I have never heard Nye discuss his actual credentials; in contrast, he is proud of his self-anointed status as the “science guy” and portends and pretends to scientific expertise that his resume and transcripts fail to substantiate.   He bandies about the internet, interpolating himself into scientific discussions, allowing himself to be interviewed as if he’s some sort of scientific expert.  Mike Rowe? Not so much.  In fact, I think Rowe would rather be out cleaning a sewer than pretending to be an expert on topics he knows little about.  Unlike Nye, who is nothing more than a rawgabbit, Rowe comes to the table and reads his prompts and then goes back to his real area of subject matter expertise without trying to hoodwink his audience.  Nye is a pseudoscientific quack, an ultracrepidarian, who shouts down anyone who disagrees with him and argues by words without knowledge (Job 38:2). 

The attitude of both men tells me a great deal about the value of their programming.  Whereas Bill Nye continues to insist that everything he personally advocates but on which he has no more credentials than you is scientific law, Mike Rowe will address and admit to errors in scientific studies and conclusions.  Nye’s word is gospel; Rowe’s word is inquisitive.  Nye declares himself correct; Rowe is open to the notion that he might be wrong.  Usually people who are absolutely certain of a thing are wrong.  The fool is an expert in all things except for his own folly.   The scientific quack is the one who insists that he is correct; the real scientist is one who finds out what truth really means.  See, there are those foolish and naïve scientists who believed in graduate school that scientists were as interested in the truth as they want us to think they are, many of whom watch their grant funding vanish and get kicked out of programs for publishing something that the granting agency doesn’t want people to know.  Science, like everything else, is driven by money. Someone must pay for the studies, and the studies don’t pay if scientists make the funders look like cotton-headed ninnymuggins.  So, scientists lie too, pretend and portend to answers that get them more grants, more papers, more accolades, ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.  The more validation they get, the more they believe whatever tripe they preach, and they siphon more strength from the throngs of people who don’t understand science but believe it anyway while decrying everyone else as a denier, a moron, and a Puritan.  However, in order for science to move forward, you must keep an open mind.  It’s possible that you’re wrong, and in science it’s EXTREMELY COMMON.  Then there’s Rowe, who, in his post, actually cites examples.  There are others, of course, but you won’t hear Nye second guess himself or those whose research he recites from rehearsed lines.  Has Nye done any original research? At least Rowe doesn’t even leave room for you to think that he might have.  Nye’s show MADE MONEY, and that’s why it’s scientific Gospel to so many.

I don’t know how these men got appointed spokesmen for science, and I don’t know why some people insist on declaring Nye to be a subject matter expert.  I don’t know that I agree with either one of them 100%, but Rowe’s address and programming is much more intellectually stimulating and consistent with the principles of scientific investigation I learned as an actual diploma certified scientist.  I also found it somewhat offensive and uncomfortable to watch Bill Nye, who was more like the dorkiest nerdiest of us scientific aficionados, a stereotype incarnate, who appealed to the lowest of interests- explosions.  Nye continues to tout himself as a “science guy” while Rowe admits he’s nothing but a hired narrator, however good at it he might be (at least in terms of this program).  Why is it never in the discussion what their credentials are, what their agendas are, and what relationship their programs hold to true science?  I mean, when we do the Science gala on campus each April, the lead chemistry faculty refers to it as the “science magic show” and that irks me, because it leaves impressionable minds with the notion that science is magical and easy.  It’s math intensive, and it’s actually pretty boring, redundant, and formulaic (pardon the pun).  Science isn’t just the study of work, it’s a study that takes a lot of work, a lot more than simply reading lines written by someone else and then pretending those are your original thoughts.  That’s not scholarship; that’s plagiarism.

God and Intercession

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I spend a lot of time talking and writing about logical fallacies because they are so prevalent in our society. Today, I wish to speak to the "heads I win, tails you lose" arguments put for by agnostics as proof that there is no God. After spending their entire lives defying God's commandments, they conclude there must not be a God when He decides to ignore theirs. On the rare instances where something miraculous occurs, they attribute it elsewhere, claiming it wasn't miraculous because it was going to happen anyway. The patient recovers from illness because of the doctor; God had nothing to do with it. The strange lights in the sky are the Aurora Borealis...in Oklahoma...not God. The rain that fell in St George UT wasn't because the people paid their tithe but because of a low pressure system in Asia created by a mass swarm of butterflies. If all else fails, they credit brownian motion which is scientific jargon for "random chance". Nothing is divine except for what they will. How convenient. It's a no-win scenario for the faithful, but it's not new. God does not take commands from men. We did not create Him, and we do not boss Him around the universe like the gods created by those who mock our faith and Faith. God intercedes in His way, on His timeline, and to His glory, not ours. There is a center of the universe, but it is not I; there is a Lord of the Harvest, but it is not I. Rather God's inaction is explained in other avenues of logic these logicians of smart fail to consider in their dogmatic desire to destroy our deity and declare Him defunct. God intercedes when it's right and in the best way, and sometimes that best way is to send someone with skin on. Sometimes you are His hands, voice, and answer.

God intercedes where we cannot. He sent His son to save all men who actually desired salvation from death and hell. All men are fallen, and as imperfect beings, eternally indebted to God for what we have and are as well as the consequences of our rebellions and mistakes, a Savior was necessary to vicariously pay the price for those who had nothing to pay. Many men try to save themselves or delude themselves into thinking all they have to do is recite a trite and short prayer in order for this to be so, but it is Christ who saves men from death and the devil. The other times God intercedes is where men cannot do anything in the way necessary or with the tools available. When Moses led Israel from Egypt God interceded first with a pillar of fire to hold back Pharaoh's army and then opened the sea only long enough for Israel to pass through on dry ground. When the lepers came to Christ, since they did not have antibiotics or aseptic technique, Christ healed them. When Midea invaded Israel, Gideon and his 300 defeated their entire army by tricking them into thinking they were completely surrounded by Israeli soldiers. If men are incapable, at least in the moment, God will act to help them. When the people in the Book of Mormon were about to be executed because the sign of the Savior had not appeared, it happened that very moment, and still men found a way to explain it away as coincidence, but in that moment, every believer was actually spared from death. Mordecai convinced Ester that if she did not act that God would raise up a replacement, but he also promised her that if she went that God would protect her from the king's decree that anyone would die who was not summoned, and God not only protected her but saved all of her people. When Daniel was thrown in the lion's den, even though the king wanted to spare him, God shut the mouths of the lions and spared His prophet. If man cannot or will not help, that's when God steps in Himself.

Sometimes God doesn't act because to do what we demand prevents something else from happening that is better. Many old and sick people are surrounded by doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as devils have trained them, promising life to the dying, encouraging the belief that sickness excuses every indulgence, giving the impression that a single deathbed confession ablates a lifetime of wickedness and debauchery. Sometimes it is better for the sick to die, not because God doesn't hear our prayers or care about our heartache, but because those prayers are about US. I remember as a youth a comedian mocking the religious for praying over everything with this bit: "Bless us to travel home safely and that nobody will be hurt while we rob this bank." Ok, if you're doing something wicked, don't expect God's help. Contrarily, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Shadrack Meshach and Abednego were allowed to be thrown in the fiery furnace because the miracle that they did not die converted the king. Naaman suffered from Leprosy, not because God hated him but because God wanted him to ask to be cured. Jonah was swallowed by a whale to protect him after he was thrown overboard until he came to his senses and decided to obey God. Sometimes blessings appear as trials. Sure, that's not fun or preferable, but it often catalyzes something better. I imagine the disciples were totally distraught when Christ actually died, but it was absolutely necessary for Him to die so that He could rise from and overcome death. Just because God doesn't intercede where and when we demand doesn't mean that He doesn't care. I mean, I asked Him to save my marriage, but I'm glad now that He ignored that request, because my freedom from her is preferable to that other request. If God always gave us what we demand, we might miss other opportunities. How many of you really want to still be in the first job you ever held for which you prayed? In the first relationship for which you asked His blessing? Sometimes, He's leading you to a land of promise by not trading what is best for you for what you think is best for you in the moment. God did this with Mordecai. He was some sort of palace official who sat in the gate, who, because of his position, discovered a plot to assassinate the king, told it to his neice Esther, who was able to save the king. If Mordecai had not been in that place, would anyone have passed on the news? If Esther had not been chosen as queen, would the messenger have been believed? God saved the king's life by putting Mordecai and Esther where they were.

Often, He expects us to do something about it instead. Far too many people opine a bleak situation and then ask why God doesn't do anything. Many of God's detractors illegitimately conclude that because He doesn't intercede that God is neither omnipotent nor loving, but how many of those people believe themselves to be uncaring? They can act. Do they, or do they just complain about God's inaction? God did do something. He sent YOU. The story is told of a man trapped atop his house in a flood who prays to God for help only to send away a motorboat, a rowboat, and a canoe, insisting that God will save him. When he dies, he complains to God about not being saved, whereupon God says, "I sent you three boats!" Many agnostics and atheists presume that because God does not appear in shower of fire and light that He does not because He is not. They believe in mother nature or "the force" or dragons or "the great green arklesiezure", none of which can be seen, but they discount our God because they do not see Him. They believe in science they don't understand but declare our faith sophistry when they do not try to understand it.  It's very duplicitous.  See, they do not know what CS Lewis said about it: "I believe in God as I believe in the noonday sun- not that I can see it but that by it I can see everything." You may not know, but we don't know if black holes actually exist.  Much of what we understand about the universe only makes sense if they do exist.  We can't prove God exists either, and much of what we understand depends on Him, but their pseudoscience is acceptable but our faith is the tool of their figurative butchery.  Sometimes, God lights the path, enlightens the man, and makes us aware, not because He's impotent, but because He's expectant. He expects us to so something about the light and truth given to us. He expects us to act to help other people. Sometimes we do. At other times, conveniently we opine the lack of someone to act while we sit in our hammocks eating food and drinking wine that we didn't produce. I keep two photos above my desk at home- one of Washington's Crossing of the Delaware and one of Juno Beach in Normandy to remind myself of this principle: if you don't really care, you find an excuse, but if it truly matters to you, you will find a way. Forgive me a personal anecdote that's related but slightly off topic. About eight years ago, a friend of mine we'll call Sarah once marveled at my great qualities and wondered aloud why I was still single. I asked her, "Would you date me?" to which she replied that she would not. See, that's the problem. You expect people to act on information that you possess. Why should someone who lacks the information you possess make a better choice than you? Why should someone who does not know me date me if you, knowing me, choose not to date me? Pretzel logic dictates that I must not be desirable, even though Sarah knows and openly declared me to be. Pretzel logic dictates God must not care about my happiness because He didn't send me someone to marry. He did. He sent you, and you decided to date and marry someone else. You show by those choices what you truly desire, that despite whatever virtues I possess that something else, usually ephemeral, mercurial, or superficial, matters to you more. By virtue of our actions we show what really matters to us, and by virtue of so many people's inaction, we see that they don't care enough to do anything other than criticize God and those of His children placed in our way to show us what we truly desire. Again, we can turn to Esther. Hamaan wanted to kill all the Jews, and God could have swung down from heaven and laid waste to Hamaan. Instead, in the words of Mordecai: "For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" In other words, maybe God made you the queen so that you could save our people.

The prophet Isaiah sums it succinctly for our critics: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)" God loves us. God watches over us. God has a different way of responding because He has access to different information and means than we do. If there is nobody to act or nobody who can act, God will intervene. Sometimes what we think is best is actually bad, and God saves us from ourselves. I think of all the unanswered prayers for which I am grateful, and I bet you can too! People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes it's for them to bless us. Sometimes it's for us to bless them. Sometimes God places people in our path because there are things for each of us to do that nobody else can do as well as we. Neal A Maxwell wrote: "God gives the picks and shovels to the 'chosen' because they are willing to go to work and get callouses on their hands. They may not be the best or most capable, but they are the most available” ( Deposition of a Disciple [1976], 54). Who knowest whether thou art come to the kingdom for a time as this? God cares and acts in our best interest, just sometimes in ways we don't expect or predict or prefer. God doesn't do things our way because God isn't like us. God doesn't follow our commandments, especially when we don't follow His. It's exceptionally arrogant of these people to claim there is no God because He does not do what they demand when they demand and after the fashion they demand. A being more powerful never bows to an inferior one. God will intercede. I don't know how or when or why or if you will notice, but I know that His intercession will probably take the form of someone you meet, someone seemingly insignificant. I know that sometimes He inspires students and strangers to speak words I cannot hear or refuse to recognize. God will send anyone to help you from whom you are willing to accept help, and then He will send others too, those chosen because they were available to help His children His way. God's work will be done, it will be done well, and it will be done on time. Act when He asks it of you. Do not force Him to raise up replacements for you.

Legitimately Ebenezer

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I find that I turn a little Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmas time. As much as it also reminds me to reach out, do good, and be kinder, it also seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator and the kinds of people who leverage Christian charity for selfish reasons. I can never tell who needs help and who is hoping to convince me to give them my money despite their opulence because they can abuse my religious beliefs to their own gain. If they do, that's on them; if I don't give, well, that is on me, so I try to find ways and causes to support all year so that I can acquit myself rightly before God that I made an effort all year in big ways and small to lift where I stand. It's not like the burden falls entirely on me, but some of it does. In fact, I believe that often God doesn't intervene not because He cannot or does not care but because WE know, and He intends for us to discover whether or not we actually have the desire to practice what we preach. See a need? Fill a need. You don't have to give someone $15,000 for facial reconstructive surgery if you don't have it, but you can babysit their kids, take them meals, feed their fish, buy them a new couch, or a million other things that add up to fill their need. God loves us and watches over us, and it is often through other people that He meets our needs. Sometimes, however, the people who appear to be needy and demand my help make me feel like it's legitimate for me to channel Ebenezer and find a different way to help than the petitioner at my door demands.

Far too many people at Christmas are actually selfish. Of course, we all think of those who demand more and more gifts, for whom the holiday is about nothing more than being able to brag after Christmas to their mates that they have more presents or better presents. However, a lot of the recipients or organizations that compete for our Christian charity are just as selfish. You will hear John Denver's "So This is Christmas" which has nothing to do with Christmas besides mentioning it in the lyrics, and you will see the ASPCA talk about the poor freezing animals as if saving animals excuses you from not acting to save humans, to the St Jude Cancer Hospital and its sick kids, who are sick all year, as if Cancer only happens for Christmas. These are essentially nothing more than the logical fallacy "appeal to pity", and they leverage Christmas to fill their coffers. It seems like, although there are quite a few panhandlers on my regular commute all year, they multiply at Christmas. This Christmas, they turned the easement behind my house into a highway, and they routinely cut the fences and chains locking it shut because it interfered with their access to the shanties they build beneath the bridges. This costs us money, and it's also very disconcerting to know that homeless people are traversing the alley behind your house all night long. Unlike their compatriots the rest of the year, these panhandlers look even more dissheveled and pathetic. The one that really irked me was the kid trying to sell me a snickers bar for $2.00 (which is twice what the grocery store in front of which she stood was asking), who went and climbed in a Cadillac Escalade after I told her I didn't have any cash. Sell the damn car if you're hard up for money. It seems like people demand assistance who don't need it but because they think they can get money just for asking and that other people demand my assistance when they made no provisions of their own, much like the grasshopper and the ant. You know Christmas is coming, and you don't set aside money for it or put things on layaway so your kids can have Christmas? I mean sometimes tragedies strike, like in Christmas for Carole, but seriously, save for a rainy day and don't expect I owe you a living because I didn't spend all my money in riotous living.

I can never tell at Christmas who actually needs help, so I give on two conditions only. First off, I will give directly to people I know who are properly vetted (like in the aforementioned case of a Christmas for Carole). Secondly, I donate to organizations that give money predominantly to the causes they espouse. I also spend time weekly feeding the homeless myself, so I actually know some of them by sight or name, and I know which ones are legitimate, because they will actually call out pretenders among their ranks if they know it's a ruse. Elsewhere, the charlatans come out in droves. Since this is a time when want is keenly felt and people feel more charitable, it's also the most likely time to get someone to help you even if you don't need it or deserve it. They sell you sad stories, stand with signs forlornly at street corners, and the like. However, since I walk many of my errands, I also know where the legitimately homeless are likely to sleep, and from time to time I give them water or victuals or in very rare cases cash, because I know if you're sleeping behind the Centurylink box, you're probably not pretending. People don't do that for fun. It's not just individuals, but groups practice in the same piratical effort to illegitimately separate you from your money and labor. Just before Christmas, I saw an infographic detailing all the "charitable" organizations that only pass on paltry portions of donated funds to actually help others. Many of the common charities either pass on paltry portions to the causes they espouse, others pay king's ransoms in salaries to their executives, and some of them sell what you give them entirely FOR PROFIT. I even read that the Democrat party is trying to pass legislation declaring state and local taxes to be "charitable giving". If it's compelled by law, how exactly is that charitable? God knows we all wonder if the people who get money from welfare really need it, and my family members who work in law enforcement tell me there's a lion's share of welfare fraud out there. Who knew? Find a cause to support that helps in ways you value, and give them generously of your excess, and then settle your soul about it.

When I refuse to help, many people jump to the conclusion that because I do not help them I must not care about anyone else anywhere for any reason. This reducto ad absurdium concludes that if I don't help you then I must not be interested in helping anyone and that I never have and never will. Well, isn't that just selfish? It's also ignorant. Even if I walked down the street with twenty $1 notes in my billfold and gave everyone who asked $1, the 21st person would be disappointed, not because I didn't intend to help people, but because they were too late. Why is that my fault? If you're hungry, there are other people doing things in other places, and if you have a legitimate need, I'm not above going in and charging it to my Visa, but if you demand cash and then are upset because I won't ATM $20 for you, then you're just being unreasonable. The virtue of gratitude is charity's close cousin. If you don't show gratitude, then maybe you don't deserve charity. Some people actually spout profanity at me when I tell them I don't have any cash. Well, I got mugged in May 2016, and so I stopped carrying things in my pocket that I don't need so that if it happens again I'm not out $400 or whatever. Sometimes people get that and are ok with a ride or taking my extra burrito that I was going to have for lunch tomorrow. I think the legitimately needy actually mean it when they say "Anything helps", because I've seen people accept what I do have to give. It's sort of Peter of me: "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee." I do care. I do not plan on giving away hundreds every day to abject strangers who happen to ask me. I actually start the season with a budget of money I can afford to give away to other people in need, and like every budget I make, I stick to it, and when it's out, I don't have any more to give. These ingrates however maintain that if you are not giving all that you have, you might as well not get credited as having given anything at all. Even if the richest person gave away all of his wealth today equally distributed across the globe, we'd all end up with $14 each which is actually pathetic and would leave him bankrupt and poor too (Jeff Bezos net worth is $98.6Billion), and people would complain. Hell, we stand to do better from the Trump Tax Cuts, and people are pissed about that. Some people act like I never help anyone. Even though I have helped people out, some to a great degree financially, the current pleader acts as if I'm completely uncharitable because I won't give something to them.

At Christmas, there is legitimate need, and there are legitimate organizations to whom you can give and still help. The truly homeless know where to go if they need necessities like food and shelter, they just sometimes want money to buy booze and drugs which they can't get at those places. Las Vegas has a shelter for the homeless and the Catholic Diocese serves meals. Other churches and the Harley group to which I belong feed them too. On an individual case, you need to trust your feelings, and if you have any doubts, donate to one of those groups where the needy are vetted and benefit directly which will slake your guilt. You do not have to give to the beggar in front of your necessarily, but you can give to an organization that will help him instead. Even as a child I remember seeing signs at Temple Square in Salt Lake City abjuring visitors from giving money to the petitioners on the plaza because Welfare Square was within walking distance, and these people are not legitimate. You don't know if you're getting scammed by a kindergartener. Find a cause that does a good job, and support them. Ebenezer comes from the Hebrew name Eben ha-Ezer meaning "Stone of Help". It is ok to be firm as a stone about how and whom you help, but if you want to channel Ebenezer, you must also help. I watch Scrooge every year with my family because it reminds me to be a little more like that Rock of Ages and do a little more to show that I appreciate the Atoning sacrifice of Christ at Gethsemane. Be a stone. Cause an avalanche of good change. Stand firm against the wrong and roll steadfastly towards the right. There are ways to legitimately be Ebenezer at Christmas. May you find yours and may you also learn by finding ways to lose your life in the service of the Stone how ultimately to find your own life again. Godspeed, and may 2018 be a great year for you and yours.